OF KARL MARX - ciml.250x.comciml.250x.com/archive/marx_engels/on_me/marx_life_and_teachings… · INTRODUCTION. I.THESIGNIFICANCEOFMARX. KARL MARXbelongstotheranksofthose philosophicalandsociologicalthinkerswho

THE

LIFE & TEACHINGOF

KARL MARXBY

M. BEERAuthor of ''A History of British Socialism'

California

legional

'acility

This is a

translation of a bookwritten by M. Beer to commem-

orate the centenary of Marx's birth.

It is an adequate and reliable bio-

graphy, full of interesting personal details

and a clear and comprehensive account

of Marx's economic and historical doctrines.

A special feature of the book is the new

light thrown on Marx's attitude to the"Dictatorship of the Proletariat

"

and Bolshevist methods generally.No other work in English

gives the sameinformation.

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LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

SOCIAL STUDIES SERIES

(VOLUME TWO).

THE LIFE AND TEACHING OFKARL MARX

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1921

[All rights reserved.']

THE

LIFE AND TEACHINGOF

KARL MARXBY

M. BEERAuthor of "A History of British Socialism"

TRANSLATED BY T. C. PARTINGTONAND H. J. STENNING, AND REVISED

BY THE AUTHOR

NATIONAL LABOUR PRESS, LIMITED,LONDON: 8/9, JOHNSON'S COURT, E.G. 4

MANCHESTER : 30, BLACKFRIARS STREET

-CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION :

I. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MARXII. THE WORK OF HEGEL ,

I. PARENTS AND FRIENDS :

I. MARX'S APPRENTICESHIP .... 1

II. STUDENT 3

III. BEGINNINGS OF PUBLIC LIFE 11

II. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD OF MARXISM :

I. THE FRANCO-GERMAN YEAR BOOKS 15

II. FRIENDSHIP WITH FRIEDRICH ENGELS ... 19

III. CONTROVERSIES WITH BAUER AND HUGE ... 21

IV. CONTROVERSY WITH PROUDHON 26

III. YEARS OF AGITATION AND VARYING

FORTUNES :

I. THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF THE FORTIES 39

II. THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO 41

III. THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 48

IV. DAYS OF CLOUD AND SUNSHINE IN LONDON... 51

V. THE INTERNATIONAL 54

VI. THE PARIS COMMUNE 59

VII. THE EVENING OF LIFE 60

IV. THE MARXIAN SYSTEM :

I. THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY 65

II. CLASSES, CLASS STRUGGLES AND CLASS-CONSCIOUSNESS 78

III. THE ROLE OF THE LABOUR MOVEMENT ANDTHE PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP 84

IV. OUTLINES OF THE ECONOMIC DOCTRINES ... 93

V. CONCLUSION 125

INTRODUCTION.

I. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MARX.

KARLMARX belongs to the ranks of those

philosophical and sociological thinkers whothrow potent thought-ferment into the world,

and set in motion the masses of mankind. Theyawaken slumbering doubts and contradictions. They

proclaim new modes of thought, new social forms.

Their systems may sooner or later become obsolete,

and the ruthless march of time may finally over-

throw their intellectual edifice; meanwhile, however,

they stimulate into activity the minds of countless

men, inflame countless human hearts, imprintingon them characteristics which are transmitted to

coming generations. This is the grandest and finest

work to which any human being can be called.

Because these thinkers have lived and worked, their

contemporaries and successors think more clearly, feel

more intensely, and are richer in knowledge and self-

consciousness.

The history of philosophy and of social science is

comprised in such systems and generalisations. Theyare the index to the annals of mankind. None of

these systems is complete, none comprehends all humanmotives and capacities, none exhausts all the forces

and currents of human society. They all express only

fragmentary truths, which, however, become effective

and achieve success because they are shining lights

amidst the intellectual confusion of the generationwhich gives them birth, bringing it to a consciousness

x LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

of the questions of the time, rendering its further

development less difficult, and enabling its strongest

spirits to stand erect, with fixity of purpose, in critical

periods.

Hegel expresses himself in a similar sense where be

remarks :

" When the refutation of a philosophy is

spoken of, this is usually meant in an abstract

negative (completely destructive) sense, so that the

confuted philosophy has no longer any validity what-

ever, and is set aside and done with. If this be so,

the study of the history of philosophy must be

regarded as a thoroughly depressing business, seeing

that this study teaches that every system of philosophywhich has arisen in the course of time has found its

refutation. But if it is as good as granted that every

philosophy has been refuted, yet at the same time

it must be also asserted that no philosophy has been

refuted, nor ever can be refuted . . . for every

philosophical system is to be considered as the

presentation of a particular moment or a particular

stage in the evolutionary process of the idea. The

history of philosophy ... is not, in its totality,

a gallery of the aberrations of the human intellect, but

is rather to be compared to a pantheon of deities."

(" Hegel, Encyclopaedia," vol. 1, section 86,

note 2.)

What Hegel says here about philosophy is true also

of systems of social science, and styles and forms in

art. The displacement of one system by another

reflects the historical sequence of the various stages

of social evolution. The characteristic which is

common to all these systems is their vitality.

In spite of their defects and difficulties there surges

through them a living spirit from the influence of which

INTRODUCTION xi

contemporaries cannot escape. Opponents may putthemselves to endless trouble to contradict such

systems, and show up their shortcomings and incon-

sistencies, and yet, with all their pains, they do not

succeed in attaining their object ;their logical sapping

and mining, their passionate attacks break against the

vital spirit which the creative genius has breathed into

his work. The deep impression made on us by this

vitality is one of the main factors in the formation of

our judgments upon scientific and artistic achieve-

ments. Mere formal perfection and beauty throughwhich the life of the times does not throb can never

create this impression.

Walter Scott, who was often reproached with defects

and inconsistencies in the construction of his novels,

once made answer with the following anecdote : AFrench sculptor, who had taken up his abode in Rome,was fond of taking to the Capitol his artistically

inclined countrymen who were travelling in Italy, to

show them the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius,

on which occasions he was at pains to demonstrate that

the horse was defectively modelled, and did not meet

the requirements of anatomy. After one of these

criticisms a visitor urged him to prove his case in a

concrete form by constructing a horse on correct

artistic principles. The critic set to work, and when,

after the lapse of a year, his friends were again

visiting Rome, exhibited to them his horse. It was

anatomically perfect. Proudly he had it brought to

the Capitol, in order to compare both productions and

so celebrate his triumph. Quite absorbed in his

critical comparison, the French sculptor after a while

gave way to a burst of genuine artistic feeling, which

caused him pathetically to exclaim," Et pourtant

xii LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

eette bete-la est vivante, et la mienne est morte !"

(And yet that animal is alive, while mine is dead.)

Quite a number of Marxian critics find themselves

in the same position as the hypercritical French

sculptor. Their formal and logically completeeconomic doctrines and systems of historical phi-

losophy, provided with pedantically correct details and

definitions, remain dead and ineffective. They do not

put us into contact with the relations of the time,

whereas Marx has bequeathed both to the educated

and the uneducated, to his readers and to non-readers,

a multitude of ideas and expressions relating to social

science, which have become current throughout the

whole world.

In Petrograd and in Tokio, in Berlin and in London,in Paris and in Pittsburg, people speak of capital and

of the capitalist system, of means of production and

of the class struggle; of Reform and Revolution; of

the Proletariat and of Socialism. The extent of Marx's

influence is shown by the economic explanation of the

world-war, which is even accepted by the most decided

opponents of the materialist conception of history. Ageneration after Marx's death, the sovereignty of

Capital shrinks visibly, works' committees and shops'

stewards interfere with the productive processes,

Socialists and Labour men fill the Parliaments,

working men and their representatives rise to or take

by storm the highest position of political power in

States and Empires. Many of their triumphs would

scarcely have received Marx's approval. His theory,

white-hot with indomitable passion, demanded that

the new tables of the Law should be given to menamidst thunder and lightning. But still the essential

thing is that the proletariat is loosening its bonds, even

INTRODUCTION xiii

if it does not burst them noisily asunder. We find

ourselves in the first stages of the evolution of Socialist

society. Through whatever forms this evolutionary

process may pass in its logical development, this muchis certain, that only by active thought on the part

of Socialists and by the loyal co-operation of the

workers can it be brought to its perfection.

We are already using Hegelian expressions, and

must therefore pause here to note briefly Hegel'scontribution to the subject. Without a knowledge of

this, no one can be in a position to appreciate the

important factors in the life and influence of Marx,or even to understand his first intellectual achieve-

ments during his student years.

II. THE WORK OF HEGEL.

Until towards the end of the eighteenth century,learned and unlearned, philosophers and philistines,

had some such general notions as the following. Theworld has either been created, or it has existed from

eternity. It is either governed by a personal, super-natural god or universal spirit, or it is kept going bynature, like some delicate machine. It exists in

accordance with eternal laws, and is perfect, ordained

to fulfil some design, and constant. The things and

beings which are found in it are divided into kinds,

species and classes. All is fixed, constant and eternal.

Things and beings are contiguous in space, and

succeed one another in time, as they have done ever

since time was. It is the same with the incidents and

events of the world and of mankind. Such common

xiv LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

proverbs as" There is nothing new under the sun "

and "History repeats itself

" are but the popular

expression of this view.

Correlative to this philosophy was Logic, or the

science of the laws of thinking (Greek logos reason,

word). It taught how men should use their reason,

how they should express themselves reasonably, how

concepts arise (in what manner, for example, the

human understanding arrived at the concepts stone,

tree, animal, man, virtue, vice, etc.); further, howsuch concepts are combined into judgments (proposi-

tions), and finally, how conclusions are drawn from

these judgments. This logic exhibited the intellectual

processes of the human mind. It was founded by the

Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384 to 322 B.C.), and

remained essentially unaltered until the beginning of

the nineteenth century, in the same way as our whole

conception of the universe remained unchanged. This

science of human intellectual processes was based on

three original laws of thought, which best characterise

it. Just as an examining magistrate looks a prisoner

in the face, and identifies him, so that uncertainty and

contradiction may be avoided, so this logic began by

establishing the identity of the conceptions with which

it was to operate. Consequently, it established as the

first law of thought the Principle of Identity, which

runs as follows : A=A, i.e., each thing, each being, is

like itself ; it possesses an individuality of its own,

peculiar to itself. To put it more clearly, this prin-

ciple affirms that the earth is the earth, a state is a

state, Capital is Capital, Socialism is Socialism.

From this proceeds the second law of thought, the

Principle of Contradiction. A cannot be A and

not A. Or following our example given above, the

INTRODUCTION xv

earth cannot be the earth and a ball of fire; a State

cannot be a State and an Anarchy ; Capital cannot be

Capital and Poverty; Socialism cannot be Socialism

and Individualism. Therefore there must be no con-

tradictions, for a thing which contradicts itself is

nonsense; where, however, this occurs either in

actuality or in thought, it is only an accidental excep-tion to the rule, as it were, or a passing and irregular

phenomenon.From this law of thought follows directly the third,

viz., the Principle of the Excluded Middle. A thingis either A or non-A; there is no middle term. Or,

according to our example, the earth is either a solid

body, or, if it is not solid, it is no earth; there is no

middle term. The State is either monarchical, or, if

it is not monarchical, it is no State. Capitalism is

either oppressive, or altogether not Capitalism. Social-

ism is either revolutionary, or not Socialism at all ;

there is no middle term. (Socialism is either reformist,

or not Socialism at all; there is no middle term.)With these three intellectual laws of identity, of

contradiction, and of the excluded middle, formal

logic begins.

It is at once apparent that this logic operates with

rigid, constant, unchanging, dogmatic conceptions,

something like geometry, which deals with definitely

bounded spatial forms. Such was the rationale of the

old world-philosophy.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century a new

conception of the world had begun to make its way.The world, as we see it, or get to know it from books,was neither created, nor has it existed from time

immemorial, but has developed in the course of

uncounted thousands of years, and is still in process

xvi LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

of development. It has traversed a whole series of

changes, transformations, and catastrophes. The

earth was a gaseous mass, then a ball of fire; the

species and classes of things and beings which exist

on the earth have partly arisen by gradual transition

from one sort into another, and partly made their

appearance as a result of sudden changes. And in

human history it is the same as in nature ; the form

and significance of the family, of the State, of pro-

duction, of religion, of law, etc., are subjected to a

process of development. All things are in flux, in a

state of becoming, of arising and disappearing. There

is nothing rigid, constant, unchanging in the Cosmos.

In view of the new conception, the old formal logic

could no longer satisfy the intellect; it could not

adequately deal with things in a state of evolution.

In ever-increasing measure it became impossible for

the thinker to work with hard and fast conceptions.

From the beginning of the nineteenth century a new

logic was sought, and it was G. W. F. Hegel (1770

1831) who made a comprehensive and thoroughly

painstaking endeavour to formulate a new logic in

accordance with the universal process of evolution.

This task appeared to him to be the more urgent, as

his whole philosophy aimed at bringing thought and

being, reason and the universe, into the closest

connection and agreement, dealing with them as

inseparable from each other, regarding them as iden-

tical, and representing the universe as the gradualembodiment of Reason. " What is reasonable is real ;

what is real is reasonable.'* The task of philosophyis to comprehend what is. Every individual is the

child of his time. Even philosophy is its time graspedin thought. No individual can overleap his time.

INTRODUCTION xvii

(Pref. to Phil, of Law.) It is evident that, in his

way, Hegel was no abstract thinker, divorced from

actuality, and speculating at large. Rather he set

himself to give material content to the abstract and

purely ideal, to make it concrete, in fact. The idea

without reality, or reality without the idea, seemed

to him unthinkable. Accordingly his logic could not

deal merely with the laws of thought, but must at the

same time take account of the laws of cosmic evolu-

tion. Merely to play with the forms of thought, and

to fence with ideas, as the old logicians, especially in

the Middle Ages, were wont to do, seemed to him a

useless, abstract, unreal operation. He, therefore,

created a science of thinking, which formulated not

only the laws of thought, but also the laws of

evolution, albeit, unfortunately, in a language which

offered immense difficulties to his readers.

The essence of his logic is the dialectic.

By dialectic the old Greeks understood the art of

discourse and rejoinder, the refutation of an opponent

by the destruction of his assertions and proofs, the

bringing into relief of the contradictions and antitheses.

When examined closely, this art of discussion, in spite

of its contradictory and apparently negative (destruc-

tive) intellectual work, is seen to be very useful,

because, out of the clash of opposing opinions, it

brings forth the truth and stimulates to deeper

thought. Hegel seized hold of this expression, and

named his logical method after it. This is the dialec-

tical method, or the manner of conceiving the thingsand beings of the universe as in the process of

becoming, through the struggle of contradictoryelements and their resolution. With its aid, he bringsto judgment the three original laws of thought which

xviii LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

have already been alluded to. The principle of

identity is an abstract, incomplete truth, for it

separates a thing from the variety of other things, and

its relations to them. Everybody will see this to be

true. Let us take the proposition : the earth is the

earth. Whoever hears the first three words of this

proposition naturally expects that what is predicatedof the earth should tell him something which distin-

guishes the earth from other things. Instead of this,

he is offered an empty, hard and fast identity, the

dead husk of an idea. If the principle of identity is

at best only an incomplete truth, the principles of

contradiction and of the excluded middle are completeuntruths. Far from making a thought nonsense,

contradiction is the very thing which unfolds and

develops the thought, and hence, too, the object which

it expresses. It is precisely opposition, or antithesis,

which sets things in motion, which is the mainspringof evolution, which calls forth and develops the latent

forces and powers of being. Had the earth as a fiery,

gaseous mass remained in that state, without the

contradiction, that is, the cooling and condensation,

taking place, then no life would have appeared on it.

Had the State remained autocratic, and the contra-

dictory principle, middle-class freedom, been absent,

then the life of the State would have become rigid,

and the bloom of culture rendered impossible. Had

Capitalism remained without its proletarian contradic-

tion, then it would have reverted to an industrial

feudalism. It is the contradiction, or the antithesis,

which brings into being the whole kingdom of the

potentialities and gifts of nature and of humanity.

Only when the contradictory begins to reveal itself

does evolution to a higher plane of thought and

INTRODUCTION xix

existence begin. It is obvious that we are not con-

cerned here with logical contradictions, which usually

arise from unclear thinking or from confusion in the

presentation of facts; Hegel, and after him Marx,dealt rather with real contradictions, with antitheses

and conflicts, as they arise of themselves in the processof evolution of things and conditions.

The thing or the being, against which the contra-

diction operates, was called by Hegel the Positive, and

the contradiction, the antagonistic element, or the

antithesis, he called the Negation. As may be seen

from our example, this negation is not mere annihila-

tion, not a resolution into nothing, but a clearing awayand a building up at the same time; a disappearanceand a coming into existence ; a movement to a higher

stage. Hegel says in this connection :

"It has been

hitherto one of the rooted prejudices of logic and a

commonly accepted belief that the contradiction is not

so essential or so inherent a characteristic (in thoughtand existence) as the identity. Yet in comparisonwith it the identity is, in truth, but the characteristic

of what is simply and directly perceived, of lifeless

existence. The contradiction, however, is the source

of all movement and life ; only in so far as it contains

a contradiction can anything have movement, power,and effect."

The part played by the contradiction, the antithesis,

or the negation very easily escapes a superficial

observer. He sees, indeed, that the world is filled with

a variety of things, and that where anything is there

is also its opposite; e.g., existence non-existence,

cold heat, light darkness, mildness harshness,

pleasure pain, joy sorrow, riches poverty, Capital

Labour, life death, virtue vice, Idealism

xx LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

Materialism, Romanticism Classicism, etc., but

superficial thought does not realise that it is faced

with a world of contradictions and antitheses ; it onlyknows that the world is full of varied and manifold

things."Only active reason," says Hegel,

" reduced

the mere multiplicity and diversity of phenomena to

antithesis. And only when pushed to this point do

the manifold phenomena become active and mutually

stimulating, producing the state of negation, which

is the very heart-beat of progress and life." Only

through their differentiation and unfolding as opposingforces and factors is further progress beyond the

antithesis to a higher positive stage made possible."Where, however," continues Hegel,

" the power to

develop the contradiction and bring it to a head is

lacking, the thing or the being is shattered on the

contradiction." (Hegel," Science of Logic," Pt. 1,

Sec. 2, pp. 66, 69, 70.)

This thought of Hegel's is of extraordinary import-ance for the understanding of Marxism. It is the

soul of the Marxian doctrine of the class-struggle, nay,of the whole Marxian system. One may say that

Marx is always on the look-out for contradictions

within the social development, for wherever the con-

tradiction (antithesis class struggle) shows itself,

there begins, according to Marx-Hegel, the progressto a higher plane.*We have now become familiar with two expressions

of the dialectical method, the positive and the nega-tion. We have seen the first two stages of the processof growth in thought and in reality. The process is

not yet complete. It still requires a third stage.

In one of the later chapters the reader will find the series ofcontradictions discovered by Marx in the evolution of capitalism.Sec. IV.,

"Outlines of the Economic Doctrine." Chapter 8,

" EconomicContradictions."

INTRODUCTION xxi

This third step Hegel called the Negation of the

Negation. With the continued operation of the

negation, a new thing or being comes into existence.

To revert to our examples : the complete cooling

and condensation of the earth's crust : the rise of the

middle-class State : the victory of the Proletariat :

these things represent the suspension or the setting

aside of the Negation; the contradiction is thus

resolved, and a new stage in the process of evolution

is reached. The expressions Positive (or affirmation),

Negation, and Negation of the Negation, are also

known as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

In order to understand this more distinctly, and to

visualise it, let us consider an egg. It is something

positive, but it contains a germ, which, awakening to

life, gradually consumes (i.e., negatives) the contents

of the egg. This negation is, however, no mere

destruction and annihilation; on the contrary, it

results in the germ developing into a living thing.

The negation being complete, the chick breaks throughthe egg shell. This represents the negation of the

negation, whereby there has arisen something

organically higher than an egg.

This mode of procedure in human thinking and in

the operations of nature and history Hegel called the

dialectical method, or the dialectical process. It is

evident that the dialectic is at the same time a method

of investigation and a philosophy. Hegel outlines his

dialectic in the following words :

" The only thing which is required for scientific

progress, an elementary principle for the understand-

ing of which one should really strive, is the recognition

of the logical principle that the negative is just as

much a positive, or that the contradictory does not

xxii LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

resolve into nothing, into an abstract nothingness,

but actually only into the negation of a special content.

. . . In so far as the resultant, the negation, is a

definite negation, it has a content. It is a new con-

ception, but a higher and richer conception than the

preceding one; for it has been enriched by the

negation or antithesis of this ; it therefore contains it

and more than contains it, being indeed the synthetic

unity of itself and its contrary. In this way the

system of concepts has to be formed and is to be

perfected by a continual and purely intellectual

process which is independent of outside influences."

(Hegel," Science of Logic

"(German), Bk. I.,

Introduction.)

The dialectical process completes itself not only by

gradual transitions, but also by leaps. Hegelremarks :

" It has been said that there are no sudden leaps

in nature, and it is a common notion that things have

their origin through gradual increase or decrease.

But there is also such a thing as sudden transforma-

tion from quantity into quality. For example, water

does not become gradually hard on cooling, becomingfirst pulpy and ultimately attaining the rigidity of

ice, but turns hard at once. If the temperature be

lowered to a certain degree, the water is suddenly

changed into ice, i.e., the quantity the number of

degrees of temperature is transformed into quality

a change in the nature of the thing. (" Logic"

(German), Pt. 1, Sec. 1, p. 464, Ed. 1841.)

Marx handled this method with unsurpassed

mastery; with its aid he formulated the laws of the

evolution of Socialism. In his earliest works," The

Holy Family"

(1844) and the "Poverty of

INTRODUCTION xxiii

Philosophy"

(1847), written when he was formula-

ting his materialist conception of history, as also in

his "Capital," it is with the dialectic of Hegel that

he investigates these laws." Proletariat and Riches (later Marx would have

said Capital) are antitheses. As such they constitute

a whole; both are manifestations of the world of

private property. The question to be considered is

the specific position which both occupy in the anti-

thesis. To describe them as two sides of a whole is

not a sufficient explanation. Private property as

private property, as riches, is compelled to preserveits own existence, and along with it that of its anti-

thesis, the Proletariat. Private property satisfied in

itself is the positive side of the antithesis. The

Proletariat, on the other hand, is obliged, as Pro-

letariat, to abolish itself, and along with it private

property, its conditioned antithesis, which makes it

the Proletariat. It is a negative side of the antithesis,

the internal source of unrest, the disintegrated and

disintegrating Proletariat. . . . Within the anti-

thesis, therefore, the owner of private property is the

conservative, and the proletarian is the destructive

party. From the former proceeds the action of main-

taining the antithesis, from the latter the action of

destroying it. From the point of view of its national,

economic movement, private property is, of course,

continually being driven towards its own dissolution,

but only by an unconscious development which is

independent of it, and which exists against its will,

and is limited by the nature of things; only, that is,

by creating the Proletariat as proletariat, povertyconscious of its own physical and spiritual poverty,and demoralised humanity conscious of its own

xxiv LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

demoralisation and consequently striving against it.

" The Proletariat fulfils the judgment which private

property by the creation of the Proletariat suspendsover itself, just as it fulfils the judgment which wage-labour suspends over itself in creating alien riches and

its own condemnation. If the Proletariat triumphs,it does not thereby become the absolute side of society,

for it triumphs only by abolishing itself and its

opposite. In this way both the Proletariat and its

conditioned opposite, private property, are done awaywith."*

The dialectical method is again described in a few

sentences on pages 420 421 of the third volume of"

Capital"

(German), where we read :" In so far as

the labour process operates merely between man and

nature, its simple elements are common to every form

of its social development. But any given historical,

form of this process further develops its material

foundations and its social forms. When it has

attained a certain degree of maturity the givenhistorical form is cast off and makes room for a

higher one. That the moment of such a crisis

has arrived is shown as soon as there is a

deepening and widening of the contradiction and

antithesis between the conditions of distribution, and

consequently also the existing historical form of the

conditions of production corresponding to them, on

the one hand, and the forces of production, productive

capacity, and the state of evolution of its agents, on

the other. There then arises a conflict between the

material development of production and its cor-

responding social form."

Marx, In "The Holy Family" (1844), reprinted by Mehring in the"Collected Works or Literary Reraaing of Marx and Engels," TO!. II.,

p. 182.

INTRODUCTION xxv

But the Hegelian dialectic appears most strikingly in

the famous twenty-fourth chapter (sec. 7) of the first

volume of"

Capital"

(German), where the evolution

of capitalism from small middle-class ownership

through all phases up to the Socialist revolution is

comprehensively outlined in bold strokes :" The

capitalist method of appropriation, which springs from

the capitalist method of production, and therefore

capitalist private property, is the first negation of

individual private property based on one's own labour.

But capitalist production begets with the inevitable-

ness of a natural process its own negation. It is the

negation of the negation." Here we have the three

stages : the thesis private property; the antithesis

capitalism; the synthesis common ownership.Of critical social writers outside Germany it was

Proudhon, in particular, who, in his works " What is

Property?" and " Economic Contradictions, or the

Philosophy of Poverty"

(1840, 1846), attempted to

use the Hegelian dialectic. The fact that he gave his

chief book the title" Economic Contradictions "

shows that Proudhon was largely preoccupied with

Hegel. Nevertheless, he did not get below the

surface ; he used the Hegelian formulae quite

mechanically, and lacked the conception of an

immanent process of development (the forward-

impelling force within the social organism).If we look at the dialectical method as here pre-

sented, Hegel might be taken for a materialist thinker.

Such a notion would be erroneous. For Hegel is an

idealist : the origin and essence of the process of

growth is to be sought, according to him, not in

material forces, but in the logical idea, reason, the

universal spirit, the absolute, or in its religious

xxvi LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

expression God. Before He created the world Heis to be regarded as an Idea, containing within itself

all forms of being, which it develops dialectically.

The idea creates for itself a material embodiment; it

first expresses itself in the objects of inorganic nature ;

then in plants, organisms wherein life awakens ; then

in animals, in which the Idea attains to the twilight

of reason; finally, in men, where reason rises into

mind and achieves self-consciousness and freedom.

As self-conscious mind it expresses itself in the history

of peoples, in religion, art and philosophy, in human

institutions, in the family and in law, until it realises

itself in the State as its latest and highest object.

According to Hegel, then, the universal Idea

develops into Godhead in proportion as the material

world rises from the inorganic to the organic, and,

finally, to man. In the mental part of man, the Idea

arrives at self-consciousness and freedom and becomes

God. In his cosmology, Hegel is a direct descendant

of the German mystics, Sebastion Franck and Jacob

Boehme. He was in a much higher degree Germanthan any of the German philosophers since Leibnitz.

The strangest thing, however, is that Germanism,

Protestantism, and the Prussian State appeared to

Hegel as the highest expression of the universal

mind. Particularly the Prussian State as it existed

before March, 1848, with its repudiation of all middle-

class reforms and liberalism (of any kind), and its

basis of strong governmental force.

There is little purpose in trying to acquire a logical

conception of Hegelian cosmology. It is not only

idealist, but, as we said, mystical; it is as in-

conceivable to human reason as the biblical;

it is irrational, and lies beyond the sphere of

INTRODUCTION xxvii

reason. Making the universe arise out of pure reason,

out of the logical idea, developing through the dialec-

tical process with a consciousness of freedom, it yetconcludes in unreason and an obstinate determinism.

In Liberalism Hegel saw only a simple negation, a

purely destructive factor, which disintegrates the

State and resolves it into individuals, thus deprivingit of all cohesion and organising strength. He blamed

Parliamentarism for demanding" that everything

should take place through their (the individuals)

expressed power and consent. The will of the manyoverturns the Ministry, and what was the Oppositionnow takes control, but, so far as it is the Government,the latter finds the many against it. Thus agitation

and unrest continue. This collision, this knot, this

problem, is what confronts history, a problem which

it must resolve at some future time." One would

have thought that it was precisely Parliamentarism,

with its unrest and agitation, its antitheses and

antagonisms, which would have had a special attrac-

tion for Hegel, but nevertheless he turned aside from

it. How is this to be explained ?

Hegel's relation to the Prussian State is to be

accounted for by his strong patriotic sentiments. His

disposition inclined him strongly to nationalism in

politics. In his early manhood he witnessed the

complete dissolution of the German Empire, and

deeply bewailed the wretchedness of German condi-

tions. He wrote :

"Germany is no longer a State ;

even the wars which Germany waged have not ended

in a particularly honourable manner for her. Bur-

gundy, Alsace, Lorraine have been torn away. The

Peace of Westphalia has often been alluded to as

Germany's Palladium, although by it the complete

xxviii LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

dismemberment of Germany has only been established

more thoroughly than before. The Germans have

been grateful to Richelieu, who destroyed their

power." On the other hand, the achievements of

Prussia in the Seven Years' War, and in the War of

Liberation against the French, awoke in him the hopethat it was this State which could save Germany.To this thought he gave eloquent and enthusiastic

expression in his address at the opening of his Berlin

lectures in October, 1818, and also in his lecture on

Frederick the Great. Hegel therefore rejected every-

thing which seemed to him to spell a weakening of

the Prussia State power. The dialectician was over-

come by national feelings.

However, Hegel's place in the history of thought

rests, not on his explanations of the creation of the

world, nor on his German nationalist politics, but uponthe dialectical method. In exploring, by means of

this method, the wide expanse of human knowledge,he scattered an astonishing abundance of materialistic

and strictly scientific observations and suggestions,

and inspired his pupils and readers with a living con-

ception of history, of the development of mankind to

self-consciousness and freedom, thus rendering them

capable of pushing their studies further, and eman-

cipating themselves from all mysticism. As an

example of the materialist tendency of his philosophy,the following references will serve. His "

Philosophyof History

" contains a whole chapter upon the

geographical foundations of universal history. In this

chapter he expresses himself quite contrary to his

deification of the State as follows :

" A real State

and a real central government only arise when the

distinction of classes is already given, when Riches

and Poverty have become very great, and such con-

INTRODUCTION xxix

ditions have arisen that a great multitude can no

longer satisfy their needs in the way to which theyhave been accustomed." Or take his explanation of

the founding of colonies by the Greeks." This projecting of colonies, particularly in the

period after the Trojan War until Cyrus, is here a

peculiar phenomenon, which may thus be explained :

in the individual towns the people had the governing

power in their hands, in that they decided the affairs

of State in the last resort. In consequence of the long

peace, population and development greatly increased,

and quickly brought about the accumulation of

great riches, which is always accompanied by the

phenomenon of great distress and poverty. Industry,in our sense, did not exist at that time, and the land

was speedily monopolised. Nevertheless, a section of

the poorer classes would not allow themselves to be

depressed to the poverty line, for each man felt himself

to be a free citizen. The sole resource, therefore, was

colonisation."

Or even the following passage, which conceives the

philosophical system merely as the result and reflec-

tion of the accomplished facts of existence, and

therefore rejects all painting of Utopias :

*'Besides,

philosophy comes always too late to say a word as

to how the world ought to be. As an idea of the

universe, it only arises in the period after reality has

completed its formative process and attained its final

shape. What this conception teaches is necessarily

demonstrated by history, namely, that the ideal

appears over against the real only after the consum-

mation of reality, that the ideal reconstructs the same

world, comprehended in the substance of reality, in

the form of an intellectual realm. A form of life has

become old when philosophy paints its grey on grey,

xxx LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

and with grey on grey it cannot be rejuvenated but

only recognised. The owl of Minerva begins its flight

only with the falling twilight." Preface to the"Philosophy of Law."No materialist could have said this better : the owl

the symbol of wisdom only begins her flight in the

evening, after the busy activities of the world are over.

Thus we have first the universe, and then thought;first existence, and then consciousness.

Hegel himself was therefore an example of his own

teaching that contradictory elements are to be found

side by side. His mind contained both idealism and

realism, but he did not bring them by a process of

reasoning to the point of acute contradiction in order

to reach a higher plane of thought. And as he regardedit as the task of philosophy to recognise the principle

of things, and to follow it out systematically and

logically throughout the whole vast domain of reality,

and as further, owing to his mystical bent, he asserted

the idea to be the ultimate reality, he remained a

consistent Idealist.

The Conservatism of Hegel, who was the philoso-

phical representative of the Prussian State, was,

however, sadly incompatible with the awakeningconsciousness of the German middle class, which, hi

spite of its economic weakness, aspired to a freer State

constitution, and greater liberty of action. These

aspirations were already somewhat more strongly

developed in the larger towns and industrial centres

of Prussia and the other German States. The YoungHegelians* championed this middle-class awakening in

* After the death of Hegel differences of opinion arose among his

disciples, chiefly with respect to his doctrines of the Deity, immortalityand the personality of Christ. One section, the so-called

"Right Wing,"

inclined to orthodoxy on these questions. In opposition to them stoodthe ''Young Hegelians," the progressive "Left Wing." To this section

belonged Arnold Ruge, Bruno Bauer, Feuerbach, and Strauss, author of

the"Life of Jesu8.'

r

INTRODUCTION xxxi

the philosophical sphere, just as"Young Germany

"

(Heine, Boerne, etc.) did in the province of literature.

Just at the time when Marx was still at the

university the Young Hegelians took up the fight

against the conservative section of Hegel's disciples and

the Christian Romanticism of Prussia. The antagon-ism between the old and the new school made itself

felt both in religious philosophy and political litera-

ture, but both tendencies were seldom combined in

the same persons. David Strauss subjected the

Gospels to a candid criticism ; Feuerbach investigated

the nature of Christianity and of religion generally,

and in this department inverted Hegel's Idealism to

Materialism ; Bruno Bauer trained his heavy historical

and philosophical artillery on the traditional dogmas

concerning the rise of Christianity. Politically, how-

ever, they remained at the stage of the freedom of

the individual : that is, they were merely moderate

Liberals. Nevertheless, there were also less prominent

Young Hegelians who were at that time in the Liberal

left wing as regards their political opinions, such as

Arnold Ruge.None of the Young Hegelians had, however, used

the dialectical method to develop still further the

teaching of the Master. Karl Marx, the youngest of

the Hegelians, first brought it to a higher stage in

social science. He was no longer known to Hegel, who

might otherwise have died with a more contented or

perhaps even still more perturbed mind. Heinrich

Heine, who belonged to the Hegelians in the thirties

and forties, relates the following anecdote, which if

not true yet excellently illustrates the extraordinary

difficulties of the Master's doctrines :

As Hegel lay dying, his disciples, who had gathered

xxxii LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

round him, seeing the furrows deepen on the Master's

care-worn countenance, inquired the cause of his

grief, and tried to comfort him by reminding him of

the large number of admiring disciples and followers

he would leave behind. Breathing with difficulty, he

replied :

" None of my disciples has understood me;

only Michelet has understood me, and," he added with

a sigh," even he has misunderstood me."

The Life and Teaching of Karl Marx

i.

PARENTS AND FRIENDS.

I. MARX'S APPRENTICESHIP.

Karl Heinrich Marx first saw the light of day in

Treves on May 5, 1818. His father, an enlightened,fine feeling, and philanthropic Jew, was a Jurist whohad slowly risen from the humble circumstances of a

German Rabbi family and acquired a respectable

practice, but who never learnt the art of making

money. His mother was a Dutchwoman, and cameof a Rabbi family called Pressburg, which, as the

name indicates, had emigrated from Pressburg, in

Hungary, to Holland, in the seventeenth century.She spoke German very imperfectly. Marx has

handed on to us one of her sayings,"

If Karl madea lot of Capital, instead of writing a lot about Capital,

it would have been much better." The Marxes had

several children, of whom Karl alone showed special

mental gifts.

In the year 1824 the family embraced Christianity.

The baptism of Jews was at that time no longer a

rarity. The enlightenment of the last half of the

eighteenth century had undermined the dogmatic

2 LIFE AND TEACHING OF KARL MARX

beliefs of many cultured Jews, and the succeeding

period of German Christian Romanticism brought a

strengthening and idealising of Christianity and of

national feeling, from which, for practical just as muchas for spiritual reasons, the Jews who had renounced

their own religion could not escape. They were

completely assimilated, felt and thought like the

rest of their Christian and German fellow-citizens.

Marx's father felt himself to be a good Prussian,

and once recommended his son to compose an

ode, in the grand style, on Napoleon's downfall

and Prussia's victory. Karl did not, in truth, follow

his father's advice, but from that time of Christian

enthusiasm and German patriotic sentiment until his

life's end, there remained with him an anti-Jewish

prejudice; the Jew was generally to him either a

usurer or a cadger.

Karl was sent to the grammar school in his native

town, leaving with a highly creditable record. The

school was, however, not the only place where he

developed his mind. During his school years he used

to frequent the house of the Government Privy

Councillor, L. von Westphalen, a highly cultured

Prussian official, whose favourite poets were Homerand Shakespeare, and who followed attentively the

intellectual tendencies of his time. Although he had

already reached advanced age, he liked to converse

with the precocious youth, and to influence his mental

growth. Marx honoured him as a fatherly friend" who welcomes every progressive movement with the

enthusiasm and sober judgment of a lover of truth,

and who is a living proof that Idealism is no

imagination, but the truth." (Dedication of Marx's

doctor thesis.)

STUDENT 8

After quitting the public school, Marx went

to the University of Bonn, in order to study juris-

prudence, according to his father's wishes. After a

year of the merry life of a student, he removed in the

autumn of 1836 to Berlin University, the centre of

culture and truth, as Hegel had called it in his

Inaugural Lecture (1818). Before his departure for

Berlin, he had become secretly engaged to Jenny Von

Westphalen, the daughter of his fatherly friend, a

woman distinguished alike for beauty, culture, and

strength of character.

II. STUDENT.

In Berlin, Marx threw himself into the study of

Philosophy, Jurisprudence, History, Geography,

Literature, the History of Art, etc. He had a Faust-

like thirst for truth, and his appetite for work was

insatiable; in these matters only superlatives can be

used to describe Marx. In one of his poems datingfrom this period, he says of himself :

" Ne'er can I perform in calmness

What has seized my soul with might,But must strive and struggle onward

In a ceaseless, restless flight.

All divine, enhancing gracesWould I make of life a part;

Penetrate the realms of science,

Grasp the joys of Song and Art."


Giving up all social intercourse, he worked nightand day, making abstracts of what he read, translating

from Greek and Latin, working at philosophical

systems, setting down a considerable number of his

own thoughts, and drafting outlines of philosophy or

jurisprudence, as well as writing three volumes of

poems. The year 1837 marks one of the critical

periods of Marx's intellectual development; it was a

time of vacillation and ferment and of internal

struggle, at the end of which he found refuge in the

Hegelian dialectics. In so doing he turned his back

on the abstract idealism of Kant and Fichte, and madethe first step towards reality ; and indeed at that time

Marx firmly believed that Hegel actually stood for

reality. In a somewhat lengthy letter dated November

10, 1837, a truly human document, Marx gives his

father an account of Ms intense activity during that

remarkable period, comprising his first two terms at

the University of Berlin, when he was still so very

young :

" DEAR FATHER," There are times which are landmarks in our

lives ; and they not only mark off a phase that has

passed, but, at the same time, point out clearly our

new direction. At such turning points we feel

impelled to make a critical survey of the past and

the present, so as to attain to a clear knowledgeof our actual position. Nay, mankind itself, as all

history shows, loves to indulge in this retrospection

and contemplation, and thereby often appears to be

going backward or standing still, when after all it

has only thrown itself back in its armchair, the

better to apprehend itself, to grasp its own doings,

and to penetrate into the workings of the spirit.

STUDENT 5

" The individual, however, becomes lyrical at

such times; for every metamorphosis is in part an

elegy on the past and in part the prologue of a great

new poem that is striving for permanent expressionin a chaos of resplendent but fleeting colours. Bethat as it may, we would fain set up a monumentto our past experiences that they may regain in

memory the significance which they have lost in

the active affairs of life : and what more fitting waycan we find of doing that than by bringing them

and laying them before the hearts of our parents !

" And so now, when I take stock of the yearwhich I have just spent here, and in so doing answer

your very welcome letter from Ems, let me consider

my position, in the same way as I look on life

altogether, as the embodiment of a spiritual force

that seeks expression in every direction : in science,

in art, and in one's own personality. . . . On

my arrival in Berlin I broke off all my former con-

nections, paid visits rarely and unwillingly, and

sought to bury myself in science and art. . . In

accordance with my ideas at the time, poetry must

of necessity be my first concern, or at least the most

agreeable of my pursuits, and the one for which I

most cared; but, as might be expected from my

disposition and the whole trend of my development,it was purely idealistic. Next I had to study juris-

prudence, and above all I felt a strong impulse to

grapple with philosophy. Both studies, however,were so interwoven that on the one hand I worked

through the Jurist's Heineccius and Thibaut and

the Sources docilely and quite uncritically, transla-

ting, for instance, the first two books of the

Pandects of Justinian, while on the other hand I


attempted to evolve a philosophy of law in the

sphere of jurisprudence. By way of introduction I

laid down a few metaphysical principles, and

carried this unfortunate work as far as Public

Rights, in all about 300 sheets." In this, however, more than in anything else,

the conflict between what is and what ought to be,

which is peculiar to Idealism, made itself disagree-

ably prominent. In the first place there was what

I had so graciously christened the Metaphysics of

Law, i.e., first principles, reflections, definitions,

standing aloof from all established jurisprudence and

from every actual form of legal practice. Then the

unscientific form of mathematical dogmatism in

which there is so much beating about the bush, so

much diffuse argumentation without any fruitful

development or vital creation, hindered me from the

outset from arriving at the Truth. A triangle maybe constructed and reasoned about by the mathe-

matician ; it is a mere spatial concept and does not

of itself undergo any further evolution; it must be

brought in conjunction with something else, whenit requires other properties, and thus by placingthe same thing in various relationships we are

enabled to deduce new relationships and new truths.

Whereas in the concrete expression of the mental

life as we have it in Law, in the State, in Nature,

and in the whole of philosophy, the object of our

study must be considered in its development. . .

The individual's reason must proceed with its self-

contradiction until it discovers its own unity."

In this we perceive the first trace of the Hegeliandialectic in Marx. We see rigid geometrical forms

STUDENT 7

contrasted with the continually evolving organism,with social forms and human institutions. Marx had

put up a stout resistance against the influence of the

Hegelian philosophy; nay, he had even hated it and

had made mighty efforts to cling faithfully to his

idealism, but in the end he, too, must fall under the

spell of the idea of evolution, in the form which it

then assumed in Hegelian speculation in Germany.Marx then goes on to speak of his legal studies as

well as of his poems, and thus continues :

" As a result of these various activities I passed

many sleepless nights during my first term, engagedin many battles, and had to endure much mental

and physical excitement; and at the end of it all

I found myself not very much better off, having in

the meanwhile neglected nature, art and society,

and spurned pleasure : such, indeed, was the com-

ment which my body seemed to make. My doctor

advised me to try the country, and so, having for

the first time passed through the whole length of

the city, I found myself before the gate on the

Stralau Road. . . . From the idealism which I

had cherished so long I fell to seeking the ideal in

reality itself. Whereas before the gods had dwelt

above the earth, they had now become its verycentre.

*'I had read fragments of Hegel's philosophy,

the strange, rugged melody of which had not pleased

me. Once again I wished to dive into the depthsof the sea, this time with the resolute intention

of finding a spiritual nature just as essential,

concrete, and perfect as the physical, and instead

of indulging in intellectual gymnastics, bringing uppure pearls into the sunlight.


" I wrote about 24 sheets of a dialogue entitled' Cleantes or on the Source and Inevitable Develop-ment of Philosophy.* In this, art and science, which

had hitherto been kept asunder, were to some extent

blended, and bold adventurer that I was, I even set

about the task of evolving a philosophical, dialec-

tical exposition of the nature of the Deity as it is

manifested in a pure concept, in religion, in nature,

and in history. My last thesis was the beginningof the Hegelian system ; and this work, in course of

which I had to make some acquaintance with science,

Schelling and history, and which had occasioned mean infinite amount of hard thinking, delivers me like

a faithless siren into the hands of the enemy. . . .

"Upset by Jenny's illness and by the fruitless-

ness and utter failure of my intellectual labours, and

torn with vexation at having to make into my idol

a view which I had hated, I fell ill, as I have

already told you in a previous letter. On myrecovery I burnt all my poems and material for

projected short stories in the vain belief that I could

give all that up ; and, to be sure, so far I have not

given cause to gainsay it.

"During my illness I had made acquaintance with

Hegel from beginning to end, as also with most of

his disciples. Through frequent meetings with

friends in Stralau I got an introduction into a

Graduates' Club, in which were a number of pro-

fessors and Dr. Rutenberg, the closest of my Berlin

friends. In the discussions that took place manyconflicting views were put forward, and more and

more securely did I get involved in the meshes of

the new philosophy which I had sought to escape;but everything articulate in me was put to silence,

STUDENT 9

a veritable ironical rage fell upon me, as well it mightafter so much negation." (" Neue Zeit," 16th

year, Vol. I., No. 1.)

His father was anything but pleased with this letter.

He reproached Karl with the aimless and discursive

way in which he worked. He had expected that these

Berlin studies would lead to something more than

breeding monstrosities and destroying them again.He believed that Karl would, before everything else,

have considered his future career, that he would have

devoted all his attention to the lectures in his course,

that he would have cultivated the acquaintance of

people in authority, that he would have been econo-

mical, and that he would have avoided all philoso-

phical extravagances. He refers him to the exampleof his fellow students who attend their lectures regu-

larly and have an eye to their future :

" Indeed these young men sleep quite peacefully

except when they now and then devote the whole

or part of a night to pleasure, whereas my clever

and gifted son Karl passes wretched sleepless nights,

wearying body and mind with cheerless study,

forbearing all pleasures with the sole object of

applying himself to abstruse studies : but what he

builds to-day he destroys again to-morrow, and in

the end he finds that he has destroyed what he

already had, without having gained anything from

other people. At last the body begins to ail and

the mind gets confused, whilst these ordinary folks

steal along in easy marches, and attain their goalif not better at least more comfortably than those

who contemn youthful pleasures and undermine

their health in order to snatch at the ghost of erudi-


tion, which they could probably have exorcised more

successfully in an hour spent in the society of

competent men with social enjoyment into the

bargain !

"

In spite of his unbounded love for his father, Marxcould not deviate from the path which he had chosen.

Those deeper natures who, after having lost their

religious beliefs, have the good fortune to attain to a

philosophical or scientific conception of the universe,

do not easily shrink from a conflict between filial

affection and loyalty to new convictions. Nor was

Marx allured by the prospects of a distinguished

official career. Indeed his fighting temperament would

never have admitted of that. He wrote the lines :

Therefore let us, all things daring,

Never from our task recede ;

Never sink iu sullen silence,

Paralysed in will and deed.

Let us not in base subjection

Brood away our fearful life,

When with deed and aspiration

We might enter in the strife.

His stay in Stralau had the most beneficial effects

on his health. He worked strenuously at his newly-

acquired philosophical convictions, and for this his

relations with the members of the Graduates' Club

stood him in good stead, more especially his acquaint-

ance with Bruno Bauer, a lecturer in theology, and

Friedrich Koppen, a master in a grammar school, whoin spite of difference of age and position treated him

as an equal. Marx gave up all thought of an official

career, and looked forward to obtaining a lectureship

BEGINNINGS OF PUBLIC LIFE 11

in some university or other. His father reconciled

himself to the new studies and strivings of his son;

he was, however, not destined to rejoice at Karl's

subsequent achievements. After a short illness he died

in May, 1838, at the age of fifty-six.

Marx then gave up altogether the study of juris-

prudence, and worked all the more assiduously at the

perfecting of his philosophical knowledge, preparinghimself for his degree examination in order at the

instigation of Bruno Bauer co get himself admitted

as quickly as possible as lecturer in philosophy at the

University of Bonn. Bauer himself expected to be

made Professor of Theology in Bonn after havingserved as lecturer in Berlin from 1831 to 1889 and in

Bonn during the year 1840. Marx wrote a thesis on

the Natural Philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus,and in 1841 the degree of Doctor of Philosophy was

conferred on him at Jena. He then went over to his

friend Bauer in Bonn, where he thought to begin his

career as lecturer. Meanwhile his hopes had dis-

appeared. Prussian universities were at that time no

places for free inquirers. It was not even possible for

Bauer to obtain a professorship ; still less could Marx,who was much more violent in the expression of his

opinions, reckon on an academic career. His only wayout of this blind alley was free-lance journalism, and

for this an opportunity soon presented itself.

III. BEGINNINGS OF PUBLIC LIFE.

Marx made his entry into public life with a thorough

philosophical training and with an irrestrainable im-


pulse to enter into the struggle for the spiritual

freedom of Germany. By spiritual freedom he under-

stood first and foremost freedom in religion and

liberalism in politics. He was, too, perfectly clear as

to the instrument to be used : it was criticism. The

positive and rigid having become ineffectual and un-

reasonable, is to fall before the weapon of criticism and

so make room for a living stream of thought and

being, or as Marx himself expressed it in 1844," to

make the petrified conditions dance by singing to them

their own tune." Their own tune is, of course, the

dialectic. Criticism, generally speaking, was the

weapon of the Young Hegelians. Criticism is nega-

tion, sweeping away existing conditions and prevailing

dogmas to make a clear path for life. Not the setting

up of new principles or new dogmas, but the clearing

away of the old dogmas is the task of the YoungHegelians. For if dialectic be rightly understood,

criticism or negation is the best positive work.

Criticism finds expression, above all, in polemics, in

the literal meaning of waging war ruthless war

against the unreal for the purpose of shaking up one's

contemporaries.After Marx had given up all hope of an academic

career, the only field of labour that remained open to

him was, as we have already said, that of journalism.

His material circumstances compelled him, moreover,to consider the question of an independent livelihood.

Just about this time the Liberals in the Rhine

provinces took up a scheme for the foundation of a

newspaper, the object of which was to prepare the wayfor conditions of greater freedom. The necessary

money was soon procured. Significantly enough,

Young Hegelians were kept in view for editors and

BEGINNINGS OF PUBLIC LIFE 13

contributors. On the first of January, 1842, the first

number of the Rheinische Zeitung was published at

Cologne. The editor was Dr. Rutenberg, who had

formed an intimate friendship with Marx at the time

the latter was attending the University of Berlin; and

so Marx, then in Bonn, was also invited to contribute.

He accepted the invitation, and his essays brought him

to the notice of Arnold Ruge, who likewise invited

him to take part in his literary undertakings in con-

junction with Feuerbach, Bauer, Moses Hess, and

others. Marx's essays were greatly appreciated, too,

by the readers of the Rheinische Zeitung, so that in

October, 1842, on the retirement of Rutenberg, he

was called to the editorial chair of that journal. In

his new position he had to deal with a series of

economic and political questions which, no doubt, with

a less conscientious editor would have occasioned little

hard thinking, but which for Marx showed the need of

a thorough study of political economy and Socialism.

In October, 1842, a congress of French and Germanintellectuals was held in Strasburg, and amongst other

things French Socialist theories were discussed. Like-

wise in the Rhine provinces arose questions concerninglanded property and taxes, which had to be dealt with

from the editorial chair, questions which were not lo

be answered by a purely philosophical knowledge.

Besides, the censorship made the way hard for a paperconducted with such critical acumen, and did not allow

the editor to fulfil his real mission. In the preface to" The Critique of Political Economy

"(1859) Marx

gives a short sketch of his editorial life :

" As editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, in 1842 and

1843 I came up, for the first time, against the difficulty

of having to take part in the controversy over so-called


material interests. The proceedings of the Diet

of the Rhine provinces with regard to wood stealing

and parcelling out of landed property, and their action

towards the farmers of the Moselle districts, and lastly

debates on Free Trade and Protection, gave the first

stimulus to my investigation of economic questions.

On the other hand, an echo of French Socialism and

Communism, feebly philosophical in tone, had at that

time made itself heard in the columns of the Rheinische

Zeitung. I declared myself against superficiality, con-

fessing, however, at the same time that the studies I

had made so far did not allow me to venture any

judgment of my own on the significance of the French

tendencies. I readily took advantage of the illusion

cherished by the directors of the Rheinische Zeitung,

who believed they could reverse the death sentence

passed on that journal as a result of weak manage-

ment, in order to withdraw from the public platforminto my study."And so the intellectual need which he felt of studying

economics and Socialism, as well as his thirst for free,

unfettered activity, resulted in Marx's retirement from

his post as editor, although he was about to enter

upon married life and had to make provision for his

own household. But he was from the beginning deter-

mined to subordinate his material existence to his

spiritual aspirations.

II.

THE FORMATIVE PERIOD OF MARXISM.

I. THE FRANCO-GERMAN YEAR BOOKS.

BETWEENthe years 1843 and 1844 we have the

second and probably the most importantcritical period in the intellectual development

of Marx. In 1837 he had become a disciple of Hegel,into whose philosophy he penetrated deeper and

deeper during the two years which ensued. Between

1843 and 1844 he became a Socialist, and in the follow-

ing two years he laid the foundations of those social

and historical doctrines associated with his name. Of

the way he came to be a Socialist and by what studies

he was led to Socialism, we know nothing. All that

can be said is that in the summer of 1843 he must have

pursued the reading of French Socialist literature just

as assidiiously as he did the study of Hegel in 1837.

In his letters to Arnold Ruge, written about 1843, and

printed in the Franco-German Year Books, we find a

few passages which bear witness to his sudden turn-

over. In a letter from Cologne (May, 1843) he

remarks :" This system of acquisition and commer-

cialism, of possession and of the exploitation of man-

kind, is leading even more swiftly than the increase

of population to a breach within the present society,

which the old system cannot heal, because indeed it

has not the power either to heal or create, but onlyto exist and enjoy."That is still in the sentimental vein, and anything

but dialectical criticism. In the following few months,

15


however, he made surprisingly rapid progress

towards the fundamental ideas of that conception of

history and society, which later on came to be known

as Marxism, and which he almost built up into a

complete system during those restless years of

exuberant creative activity, 1845 46. In a letter

from Kreuznach, dated September, 1843, he shows

already an acquaintance with Fourier, Proudhon,

Cabet, Weitling, etc., and sees his task not in the

setting up of Utopias but in the criticism of political

and social conditions," in interpreting the struggles

and aspirations of the age." And by the winter of

1843 he has already advanced so much as to be able

to write the introduction to the criticism of Hegel's"

Philosophy of Law," which is one of the boldest

and most brilliant of his essays. He deals with the

question of a German revolution, and asks which is

the class that could bring about the liberation of

Germany. His answer is that the positive conditions

for the German revolution and liberation are to be

sought" in the formation of a class in chains, a class

which finds itself in bourgeois society, but which is not

of it, of an order which shall break up all orders. The

product of this dissolution of society reduced to a

special order is the proletariat. The proletariat arises

in Germany only with the beginning of the industrial

movement ; for it is not poverty resulting from natural

circumstances but poverty artificially created, not the

masses who are held down by the weight of the social

system but the multitude arising from the acute break-

up of society especially of the middle class which

gives rise to the proletariat. When the proletariat

proclaims the dissolution of the existing order of

things, it is merely announcing the secret of its own

THE FRANCO-GERMAN YEAR BOOKS 17

existence, for it is in itself the virtual dissolution of

this order of things. When the proletariat desires the

negation of private property, it is merely elevating to

a general principle of society what it already involun-

tarily embodies in itself as the negative product of

society."

Marx wrote this in Paris, whither he had removed

with his young wife in October, 1848, in order to take

up the editorship of the Franco-German Year Books

founded by Arnold Ruge. In a letter addressed to

Ruge from Kreu/naeh in September, 1843, Marxsummed up the program of this periodical as follows :

"If the shaping of the future and its final reconstruc-

tion is not our business, yet it is all the more evident

what we have to accomplish with our joint efforts, I

mean the fearless criticism of all existing institutions

fearless in the sense that it does not flinch either from

its logical consequences or from the conflict with the

powers that be. I am therefore not with those whowould have us set up the standard of dogmatism ; far

from it; we should rather try to give what help wecan to those who are involved in dogma, so that they

may realise the implications of their own principles.

So, for example, Communism as taught by Cabet,

Dezamy, Weitling, and others is a dogmatic abstrac-

tion. . . . Moreover, we want to work upon our

contemporaries, and particularly on our German con-

temporaries. The question is : How is that to be

done? Two factors cannot be ignored. In the first

place religion, in the second place politics, are the two

things which claim most attention in the Germany of

to-day. ... As far as everyday life is concerned,

the political State, even where it has not been con-

sciously perfected through Socialist demands, exactly


fulfils, in all its modern forms, the demands of reason.

Nor does it stop there. It presupposes reason every-where as having been realised. But in so doing it

lands itself everywhere in the contradiction between

its ideal purpose and its real achievements. Out of

this conflict, therefore, of the political State with itself

social truth is evolved."

Without a doubt, the Hegelian conception of the

State as the embodiment of reason and morality did

not accord well with the constitution and the workingof the actual State. And Marx goes on to remark

that in its history the political State is the expressionof the struggles, the needs, and the realities of society.

It is not true, then, as the French and English

Utopians have thought, that the treatment of political

questions is beneath the dignity of Socialists. Rather

is it work of this kind which leads into party conflict

and away from the abstract theory." We do not

then proclaim to the world in doctrinaire fashion anynew principle :

* This is the truth, bow down before

it !J We do not say :

' Refrain from strife, it is

foolishness !

' We only make clear to men for what

they are really struggling, and to the consciousness of

this they must come whether they will or not.*'

That is conceived in a thoroughly dialectical vein.

The thinker propounds no fresh problems, brings

forward no abstract dogmas, but awakens an under-

standing for the growth of the future out of the past,

inspiring the political and social warriors with the

consciousness of their own action.

FRIENDSHIP WITH ENGELS 19

II. FRIENDSHIP WITH FRIEDRICH ENGELS.

Of the Franco-German Year Books only one number

appeared (Spring, ]844), Alongside Marx's contribu-

tions (an Introduction to the criticism of Hegel's"

Philosophy of Jurisprudence and a review of Bauer's

book on the Jewish Question) the volume contains a

comprehensive treatise." Outlines for a Criticism of

Political Economy," from the pen of Friedrich Engels

(born in Barmen, 1820; died in London, 1895), whowas then living in Manchester. In September, 1844,

Engels went to visit Marx in Paris. This visit was

the beginning of the lifelong intimate friendship

between the two men, who without a close collabora-

tion would not have achieved what they did.

Marx was a highly-gifted theorist, a master in the

realm of thought, but he was quite unpractical in the

affairs of everyday life. Had he enjoyed a regular

income throughout life, he would probably have

attained his end even without the help of Engels. Onthe other hand, Engels was an exceedingly able,

energetic, and highly-cultured man, eminently prac-tical and successful in everything he undertook, but

not endowed with that speculative temperament which

surmounts intellectual crises and opens out newhorizons. But for his intellectual association with

Marx he would, in all probability, have remained little

more than a Moses Hess. Marx was never a Utopian ;

the complete saturation of his mind with Hegeliandialectics made him immune to all eternal truths and

final social forms. On the contrary, up to 1844 Engelswas a Utopian until Marx explained to him the

meaning of political and social conflicts, the basis and

the motive force, the statics and dynamics of the


history of civilised mankind. Engels'*'

Criticism of

Political Economy"

is a very noteworthy performancefor a youth of twenty-three engaged in commerce, but

it does not rise above the level of the writings of Owen,Fourier, and Proudhon. Engels' contributions to

Owen's " New Moral World "(1843 44) are indeed

more philosophical than the other articles by Owenites,but as far as matter goes, there is no perceptibledifference between them. " The System of Economic

Contradictions," on which Proudhon was workingwhen Engels published his

"Outlines," is couched,

as far as the critical side is concerned, in the same

strain of thought as we find in Engels. Both soughtto expose the contradictions of the middle-class

economic system, not in order to discover in them the

source of the progress of society, but to condemn them

in the name of justice. Whereas the Owenites con-

sidered their system as perfect, Proudhon and Engels

had, independently of one another, striven to free

themselves from the Socialist Utopias. Proudhon

became a peaceful Anarchist and found salvation in the

scheme of autonomous economic groups, which should

carry on an exchange of labour equivalents with one

another. Engels, on the other hand, found a solution

of his difficulties in Marx, whom he rewarded with a

lifelong friendship and devotion, which proved to be

Marx's salvation. Without Engels' literary and

financial help, Marx, with his unpractical, helpless,

and, at the same time, proud and uncompromising

disposition, would most probably have perished in

exile.

CONTROVERSIES BAUER AND RUGE 21

III. CONTROVERSIES WITH BAUER AND RUGE.

After the Franco-German Year Books had been

discontinued, Marx, recognising the importance of

economics, studied English and French systems of

political economy with still greater zeal than before,

and continued his studies in Socialism and history with

remarkable steadiness of purpose. No longer now did

he show signs of hesitation or wavering ; he knew

exactly what he wanted. He had left behind him that

period of ideological speculation when he was still a

disciple of Hegel, and he was impelled, as in the

autumn of 1837, to envisage, from his new standpoint,

the past and the future. He takes such a survey in" The Holy Family," which had its genesis in the

autumn of 1844, and to which Engels also furnished

a slight contribution. It is a settling of accounts with

his former friend and master, Bruno Bauer, and his

brother Edgar, who had not been able to break awayfrom Hegel. The aim of the book was to force the

Young Hegelians into the path of social criticism, to

urge them forward and prevent them from falling into

stereotyped and abstract ways of thinking. It is not

easy reading. In it Marx has compressed the know-

ledge he then had of philosophy, history, economics,

and Socialism in concentrated and sharply-cut form.

Besides the excellent sketch of English and French

materialism, which among other things discloses in a

few short but pregnant sentences the connection

between this and English and French Socialism," The

Holy Family" contains the germs of the materialistic

conception of history as well as the first attempt to

give a social revolutionary interpretation to the class

struggle between Capital and Labour. In the Intro-


duction to the present book a quotation from " The

Holy Family" has been given. Speaking against

Bauer's conception of history, Marx says : "Orcan he believe that he has arrived even at the

beginning of a knowledge of historical reality so longas he excludes science and industry from the historical

movements ? Or does he really think that he can

understand any period without having studied, for

example, the industries of that period, the immediate

means of production of life itself? ... In the

same way as he separated thought from the senses,

the soul from the body, and himself from the world,

so he separates history from science and industry, and

he does not see the birthplace of history in coarse,

material production upon earth but in the nebulous

constructions in the heavens." (" Posthumous

Works," Vol. II., pp. 259-60.)

Bruno Bauer, who believed in the world-swaying

might of the idea, but would not concede that the

masses had any power whatever, wrote :

" All the

great movements of history up to this time were

therefore doomed to failure and could not have lasting

success, because the masses had taken an interest in

them and inspired them or they must come to a

lamentable conclusion because the underlying idea

was of such a nature that a superficial apprehensionof it must suffice, that is to say, it must reckon on

the approval of the masses."

Marx's answer to this was that " the great historical

movements had been always determined by mass

interests, and only in so far as they represented these

interests could the ideas prevail in these movements ;

otherwise the ideas might indeed stir up enthusiasm,

but they could not achieve any results. The idea

CONTROVERSIES BAUER AND RUGE 23

always fell into disrepute in so far as it differed from

the interest. On the other hand, it is easy to under-

stand that, when it makes its first appearance on the

world-stage, every mass interest working itself out in

history far exceeds, as an idea or in its presentation,

its actual limits and identifies itself purely and simplywith the interest of humanity. Thus the idea of the

French Revolution not only took hold of the middle

classes, in whose interest it manifested itself in great

movements, but it also aroused enthusiasm in the

labouring masses, for whose conditions of existence it

could do nothing. As history has shown, then, ideas

have only had effective results in so far as they cor-

responded to class interests. The enthusiasm, to which

such ideas gave birth, arose from the illusion that

these ideas signified the liberation of mankind in

general. (" Posthumous Works," Vol. II., pp. 181-3.)

In August, 1844, Marx published under the title

'*Marginal Notes "

in the Paris Vorwarts a lengthy

polemic against Ruge, which is a defence of Socialism

and revolution and takes the part of the German

proletariat against Ruge." As regards the stage of

culture or the capacity for culture of the German

workers, let me refer to Weitling's clever writings,

which in their theoretical aspect often surpass those

of Proudhon, however much they may fall behind

them in execution. Where would the middle classes,

their scholars and philosophers included, be able to

show a work like Weitling's* Guarantees of Peace

and Concord '

bearing on the question of emancipa-tion ? If one compares the insipid, spiritless

mediocrity of German political literature with this

unconstrained and brilliant literary debut of the

German workers, if one compares these gigantic baby


shoes of the proletariat with the dwarfishness of the

worn-out political shoes of the German middle classes,

one can only prophesy an athletic stature for the

German Cinderella. One must admit that the German

proletariat is the philosopher of the European pro-

letariat, just as the English proletariat is its political

economist and the French proletariat its politician.

One must admit that Germany is destined to play

just as classic a rdle in the social revolution as it is

incompetent to play one in the political. For, as the

impotence of the German middle classes is the political

impotence of Germany, so the capacity of the German

proletariat even leaving out of account German

philosophy is the social capacity of Germany."At that time (1844) Marx had already begun to mix

among the German working classes resident in Paris,

who clung to the various Socialist and Anarchist

doctrines which then held sway, and he sought to

influence them according to his own ideas. With

Heine, too, who at that time was coquetting with

Communism, he carried on a sprightly and not unfrait-

ful intercourse. He likewise came into frequent contact

with Proudhon, whom he endeavoured to makefamiliar with Hegelian philosophy. Already in his

first work, "What is Property?"

(1840) Proudhon

had played with Hegelian formulae, and Marx

probably believed that he could win him over to

Socialism. Proudhon, who, like the German Weitling,

sprang from the proletariat, ushered in his activity

as a social theorist with the above-mentioned work,which had a stimulating effect on Marx and on GermanSocialists in general, all the more so as Proudhon

manifested some acquaintance with classical German

philosophy. In this book (" What is Property ?"

CONTROVERSIES BAUER AND RUGE 2&

German edition, 1844, p. 289) he sums up the whole

matter as follows :

"Expressing this according to the

Hegelian formula, I should say that Communism, the

first kind, the first determination of social life, is the

first link in social evolution, the thesis; property is

the antagonistic principle, the antithesis; if only wecan get the third factor, the synthesis, the questionis solved. This synthesis comes about only throughthe cancelling of the thesis by the antithesis; one

must therefore in the last instance examine its char-

acteristics, discard what is anti-social, and in the

union of the remaining two is then seen the real kind

of human social life."

That was indeed a superficial conception of Hegelian

dialectics, for what Proudhon wanted to find was not

a synthesis but a combination; still for a French

working man it was a smart performance to have

manipulated German philosophical formulae, and

would justify the most sanguine hopes. Marx did not

want to let this opportunity slip, and in " debates

both late and long" he discussed Hegelian philosophy

with Proudhon. (Marx :" The Poverty of Phil-

osophy," German edition, Stuttgart, 1885, p. 29.)

In the midst of this activity, however, Marx and

other German contributors to the Paris Vorwarts were

expelled from France in January, 1845, at the instiga-

tion of the Prussian Government. Marx packed up his

traps and left for Brussels, where he lived, with short

interruptions, until the outbreak of the EuropeanRevolution in February, 1848. During his sojourn in

Brussels his time was occupied mainly with economic

studies, for which Engels placed his library of works

on political economy at his disposal. Marx embodied

the result of these studies in the criticism directed


against Proudhon in his " Misere de la Philosophic

(Poverty of Philosophy), published in 1847.

IV. CONTROVERSY WITH PROUDHON.

Marx's " Misere de la Philosophic" indicates the

culmination of the first phase of his creative work.

In this critical review he makes his position clear with

respect not only to Proudhon but to Utopian Socialism

in general. It marks also the turning point in the

studies of Marx : English political economy occupiedhenceforth the place which German philosophy had

held. The anti-Proudhon controversy is therefore

worthy of a fuller treatment.

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (b. 1809 in Besancon, d.

1865 in Paris) was one of the most gifted and most

distinguished of social philosophers which the modern

proletariat has produced. He was originally a com-

positor, like his similarly minded English contem-

porary, John Francis Bray, the author of" Labour's

Wrongs," published in 1839, but he had a much

greater inclination for study and a more fruitful

literary talent. He managed to acquire, self-taught,

a knowledge of the classical languages, of mathematics

and of science, read assiduously but indiscriminately

works on economics, philosophy, and history, and

applied himself to social criticism. It is rare for a

working man in the West of Europe to feel impelledto make an acquaintance with Kant, Hegel, and

Feuerbach as Proudhon did through French transla-

tions and through intercourse with German scholars

in Paris. He possessed the noble ambition of blending

CONTROVERSY PROUDHON 27

French sprightliness with German thoroughness. Butself-instruction failed to give him that intellectual

training which is more valuable than knowledge, and

which alone gives the power to order and to utilise

the information acquired, as well as to submit one's

own work to self-criticism. The value of a systematiceducation does not consist in the main in the acquisi-

tion of knowledge but in the training of our intellec-

tual faculties as instruments of inquiry and apprehen-

sion, of methodical thinking and of sound judgment,to enable us to find our bearings more easily in the

chaos of phenomena, experiences, and ideas. A self-

taught man may no doubt attain to this degree of

culture, but only if his first attempts at independentcreative work are submitted to a strict but kindly

criticism, which makes him discipline his thoughts.This was not the case with Proudhon; he lacked

mental self-discipline. His first work," What is

Property?"

(1840) brought hiiri immediate recogni-tion and strengthened him in his high opinion of his

knowledge and his powers, even to the point of makinghim conceited. When, for example, the French

historian, Michelet, disapproved of his dictum,"Property is robbery," Proudhon replied,

" Nottwice in a thousand years does one come across a

pronouncement like that." (" Economic Contradic-

tions," Leipzig, 1847. Vol. II., p. 301.) And yet the

idea is as old as Communism itself. Besides all this,

the vivacity and exuberance of language for which

Proudhon was noted easily blinded him to the short-

comings of his intellectual culture. Thus it often

happened that he rediscovered ideas of his predecessorsand published them to the world with naive pride.

Through page after page of argument he holds the


reader in expectation of the explanation, which he is

about to give, of the nature of value, which he rightly

characterises as the " corner-stone of political

economy." At last he will disclose the secret :

"It

is time to make ourselves acquainted with this power.This power . . . is labour." His main work,

'* The

System of Economic Contradictions," swarms with

philosophical formulae and expressions like thesis,

antithesis, antinomies, synthesis, dialectics, induction,

syllogisms, etc., as also with Latin, Greek, and

Hebrew etymologies ; it often wanders into irrelevant

theological and philosophical digressions and side

issues, not so much with the intention of paradingthe author's knowledge as from his lack of intellectual

discipline and insufficient command of his material.

The work in question was to combine German phil-

osophy with French and English political economy,and its author believed that it would secure for him

before everything else the admiration of the German

Socialists, especially of Marx. He drew the latter's

attention to it by letter, and awaited his"

rigorous

criticism.'* The criticism came in" Misere de la

Philosophie"

(Brussels, 1847), but it could no longer

fulfil its purpose, as the fundamental difference be-

tween the two men had already widened to a gulf

that could not be bridged. Marx had almost com-

pleted his materialistic, logical, and revolutionary

Socialism, Proudhon had laid the foundations of his

peaceful Anarchism with its federative economic

basis. With his searching analysis, his systematised

knowledge, and his great indignation at the presump-tuous attacks on every Socialist school and leader,

Marx sat in judgment upon Proudhon, exposing him

as a dilettante in philosophy and economics, and at


the same time sketching in outline his own conceptionof history and economics.

Marx's verdict is damning, yet one cannot but

acknowledge that Proudhon, in spite of his obvious

insufficiency, had endeavoured, honestly and

zealously, to extricate himself from Capitalism as well

as from Utopianism, and to outline a scheme for an

economic order, in which men, such as he had found

them, might lead a free, industrious, and righteous

life. The task which Proudhon had set himself was

the same as that which engaged the attention of Marx,the criticism of political economy and of the senti-

mental Utopian Socialism. That is the key-note of

Proudhon's system, and it is sounded in almost every

chapter. He lacked, however, the requisite knowledgeand the historical sense which alone could have madehim equal to his task. The whole of his criticism

consists virtually in the complaint that riches and

poverty accumulate side by side, and that the economic

categories use value, exchange value, division of

labour, competition, monopoly, machinery, property,

ground rent, credit, tax, etc. manifest contradictions.

Proudhon's special problem was the following :

" Theworkers of any country produce yearly goods to the

value, let us say, of 20 milliards. But if the workers,

as consumers, wish to buy back these goods they have

to pay 25 milliards. The workers are thus cheated

out of a fifth. That is a terrible contradiction."

(' What is Property ?"

Chap. IV. ; Economic

Contradictions," Vol. I., pp. 292-93.) This statement

of the problem shows that Proudhon had no inkling

of the essential features of the question of value, in

gpite of the fact that he cites Adam Smith, David

Ricardo, etc., whom he must therefore have read.


Had he really understood these economists and taken

up his critical attitude towards them from the stand-

point of justice, he would have stated the problemsomewhat as follows : The workers of any country

produce yearly goods to the value, say, of 20 milliards.

For their work, however, they receive as wages a

quantity of goods of the value of only 10 or 12

milliards. Is that just?"

Only this way of stating

the question could possibly have revealed to him the

nature of wages, of value, of profit, of capital and

its contradictions. Proudhon sees the perpetration of

fraud or robbery in the sphere of exchange and not

in that of production, and he does not ask himself

how, if labour produces goods to the value of only20 milliards, they can be exchanged at a value of '25

milliards, and what is responsible for the increase of

five milliards. The other contradictions which he

brings forward are not indeed new, but they are

ingeniously treated. For example : the essence of

exchange-value is labour, which creates wealth ; but

the more the wealth produced, the less becomes its

exchange-value. Or this : the division of labour is,

according to Smith, one of the most effective means

of increasing wealth, but the further the division of

labour proceeds the lower sinks the workman, beingreduced to the level of an unintelligent automaton

engaged in the performance of a fractional operation.

The same thing holds good for machinery. So, too,

competition stimulates effort, but brings much miseryin its train by leading to adulteration, sharp practices,

and strife between man and man. Further, taxation

should be proportional to riches, in reality it is pro-

portional to poverty. Or again, private ownershipof land ought to increase productivity; in practice


it deprives the fanner of the land. In this way he

runs to earth the contradictions in political economy,and so we find everywhere the words thesis and

anti-thesis or antinomies (contradictions between two

well-established propositions). And out of this

contradiction springs poverty. The solution or the

synthesis is the creation of an economic order which

shall preserve the good elements in this category and

eliminate the bad ones, and so satisfy the demandsof justice. And that is what Socialism cannot do." For the economic order is based upon calculations

of an inexorable justice and not upon those angelic

sentiments of brotherhood, sacrifice, and love which

so many well-meaning Socialists of the present time

are endeavouring to awake in the people. It is useless

for them to preach, after the example of Jesus Christ,

the necessity for sacrifice, and to set an example of

it in their own lives : selfishness is stronger than theyand can only be restrained by rigid justice and

immutable economic law. Humanitarian enthusiasm

may cause upheavals which are conducive to the

progress of civilisation, but such emotional crises, like

the fluctuations in value, simply result in the estab-

lishing of law and order on a more rigid and more

restricted basis. Nature or the Deity planted mistrust

in our hearts, having no faith in the love of man for

his fellow men; and though I say it to the shame

of the human conscience (for our hypocrisy must be

confronted with it sooner or later), every disclosure

which science has made to us concerning the designs

of providence with respect to the progress of society

points to a deeply rooted hatred of mankind on God's

part." (" System of Economic Contradictions or the

Philosophy of Poverty," Vol. I., p. 107.) Just as


severely does he denounce the institution of Trade

Unionism and its methods of warfare, together with

State politics, as indeed the working of class organisa-

tion and of the State generally. The only way to

realise social justice is to create a society of producerswho exchange their goods among one another

according to their equivalents in labour and carry on

work in adequate relationship to the production of

wealth, or, to put it clearly, to establish an order

where supply and demand balance one another.

Marx's answer to the "Philosophy of Poverty

"'

is indicated at once by the title" The Poverty of

Philosophy." He deals first of all with the economic

details of Proudhon's work, and proves with docu-

mentary evidence that the theses and antitheses it

contains partly spring from a half-understood reading

of English and French political economists, and in

part have been taken direct from the English

Communists. Marx already displays in this section

an extensive knowledge of economic literature. Thenhe confronts Proudhon's philosophical and social

theories with his own deductions and gives manypositive results. Marx's main object was to induce

the Socialists to give up their Utopianism and think

in terms of realism, and to regard social and

economic categories in their historical setting :

" Economic categories are only the theoretical

expressions, ideal conceptions of the conditions of

production obtaining in society. . . . Proudhon

has grasped well enough that men manufacture cloth,

linen, etc., under certain conditions of production.But what he has not grasped is that these social

conditions themselves are just as much human

products as cloth, linen, etc. Social conditions are


intimately bound up with productive power. With

the acquisition of new productive power men change

their methods of production, and with the change in

the methods of production, in the manner of obtaining

a livelihood, they change their social conditions. The

hand-mill gives rise to a society with feudal lords,

the steam-mill to a society with industrial capitalists.

But the same men who shape the social conditions

in conformity with the material means of production,

shape also the principles, the ideas, the categories

in conformity with their social conditions. Con-

sequently these ideas, these categories, are just as

little eternal as are the conditions to which they give

expression. They are the transitory and changing

products of history. We are living in the midst of a

continuous movement of growth in productive power,of destruction of existing social conditions, of forma-

tion of ideas." (" Poverty of Philosophy," Stuttgart,

1885, pp. 100-101.)

Here it should, above all, be noticed that Marxascribes to industrialism a powerful revolutionary

effect, and that he characterises the different forms

of society by their different methods of labour. Or,as he says later in " Capital,"

" not what is produced,but how it is produced distinguishes the various forms

of society." What he means to say, then, is that

ideas and systems are limited by their time, that theyare conditioned by the prevailing means of production.To understand them one must study the times which

have preceded them, as well as investigate the ideas

and systems themselves, and find out whether newforms have not arisen which stand in contradiction

or in contrast to the old one. Or, as Marx says :


"Feudalism, too, had its proletariat the villeinage

which contains all the germs of the middle class.

Feudal production, too, had two contradictory

elements which are likewise characterised as the'

good' and * bad '

sides of feudalism without regardto the fact that it is always the ' bad '

side which

triumphs ultimately over the '

good'side. It is the

bad side which calls into being the movement which

makes history, in that it brings the struggle to a head.

If, at the time of the supremacy of feudalism, the

economists, in their enthusiasm for knightly virtues,

for the beautiful harmony between rights and duties,

for the patriarchal life of the towns, for the flourishing

home industries in the country, for the developmentof industry organised in corporations, companies and

guilds, in a word, for everything which forms the

finer side of feudalism, had set themselves the problemof eliminating everything which could throw a shadow

on this picture serfdom, privileges, anarchy where

would it all have ended ? They would have destroyed

every element which called forth strife, they would

have nipped in the bud the development of the middle

class. They would have set themselves the absurd

problem of blotting out history.

When the middle class had come to the top, neither

the good nor the bad side of feudalism come into

question. The productive forces, which had been

developed under feudalism through its agency, fell to

its control. All old economic forms, the legal relations

between private individuals, which corresponded to

them, the political order, which was the official

expression of the old society, were shattered."

Those Socialists and social revolutionaries who

regard the hardships and struggles of society


as an absolute evil and plan the construction of a

society comprised solely of good elements, have not

grasped the meaning of the history of mankind. Theythink abstractly. They misjudge both the past and

the present." Hence to form a correct judgment of production

under feudalism one must consider it a method of

production based upon contradiction. One must show

how wealth was produced within this contradiction,

how productive power developed contemporaneouslywith the antagonism of classes, how one of these

classes, the bad side, the social evil, constantly

increased until the material conditions for its libera-

tion were fully ripe." Does that not show clearly enough that the means

of production, the conditions under which productive

power is developed, are anything but eternal laws,

that they rather correspond to a definite stage in the

evolution of mankind and of its productive power,and that a variation in the productive power of man-

kind necessarily brings about a variation in its

conditions of production?" The middle class begins with a proletariat, which

in its turn is itself a remnant of the feudal proletariat.

In the course of its historical development the middle

class necessarily develops its contradictory character,

which on its first appearance is more or less veiled,

existing only in a latent form. In proportion as the

middle class develops, there develops in its bosom a

new proletariat, a modern proletariat; and a struggle

arises between the proletarian class and the middle

class, a struggle which, before being felt, observed,

estimated, understood, acknowledged, and finally

openly proclaimed on both sides, issues in the mean-


while only in partial and transitory conflicts and acts

of destruction."

In a special chapter Marx shows the necessity and

the historical significance of the Trade Unions, which

in spite of all the apprehensions and warnings of

Utopians and Economists the workers have gone on

establishing and perfecting, in order to be able to

withstand the domination of capital. That means the

gathering together of the divided interests and

activities of the workers in a vast class movement,

standing in opposition to the middle class; which,

however, does not exclude the possibility of conflicting

interests within the classes themselves, though these

shall be put aside as soon as class is brought against

class :

" From day to day it becomes clearer then that

the conditions of production, among which the middle

class moves, have not a simple, uniform character

but one which involves conflicting elements; that the

same conditions which produce wealth produce also

poverty; that the same conditions which tend to the

development of productive power develop also the

power of repression; that these conditions only create

bourgeois wealth, i.e., the wealth of the middle class,

at the cost of the continued destruction of the wealth

of individual members of this class and the creation

of an ever-increasing proletariat." (" Poverty of

Philosophy," 1885, pp. 116-118, 177 sq.)

This antithetical character of capitalist society has

for its effect that the political economists, who are

the philosophers of the existing order, lose their

bearings, while the Socialists, who are the philosophersof the proletariat, look round for means to relieve the


distress. They condemn class struggles,* build Utopiasand plan schemes of salvation, whereas the only real

solution, because it is the only one which arises from

the actual conditions, must be to further the organisa-

tion of the oppressed class and make it conscious of

the objects of its struggles. For out of these struggles

the new society will arise, and that, of course, can

only happen when productive power has reached a

high stage of development. Or as Marx himself

proceeds :

" An oppressed class is a vital condition of any

society founded upon class antagonism. The libera-

tion of the oppressed class necessarily includes,

therefore, the creation of a new society. In order that

the oppressed class may be able to free itself, a stage

must be reached in which the already acquired powersof production and the prevailing social institutions

can no longer exist side by side. Of all the instruments

of production, the greatest productive force is the

revolutionary class itself. The organisation of the

revolutionary elements as a class presupposes the

existence in perfected form of all the productive forces

that could in any way be developed in the bosom of

the old society. Does this mean that after the collapse

of the old order of society there will be a new class

domination culminating in a new political power?The condition of the emancipation of the workingclass is the abolition of all classes, as the condition

of the emancipation of the third estate, of the middle

class, was the abolition of all the three estates. The

working class will, in the course of its evolution,

replace the old middle-class society by an association

* The Socialists of those times were the Owenites and the Fouvierists,who condemned all class struggles, Trade Unionist strikes, and Labourpolitics.


excluding classes and their antagonism, and there will

no longer be any real political power,* because it is

just this political power which is the official expression

of class antagonism within the community." Meanwhile the antagonism between proletariat and

bourgeoisie is a struggle of class against class, a

struggle which, when brought to its highest expression,

means a complete revolution. And can one indeed

be surprised that a society founded upon class

antagonism should, at its final dissolution, issue in

brutal conflict and collision of man against man ? Let

it not be said that the social movement excludes the

political. There never was a political movement which

was not at the same time a social movement."Only in an order of things where there are no

classes and no class antagonism will social evolution

cease to be political revolution. Until then the last

word of social science on the eve of every general

reconstruction of society must ever be :

*

Fight or die ;

bloody war or annihilation. Thus are we confronted

with the inexorable question.' (George Sand)."With this battle-cry

" The Poverty of Philosophy"

comes to a close. It is the prologue to the" Communist Manifesto," which in itself is but a

popular version of the positive doctrines developedin the controversy against Proudhon.

* Marx means the State.

in.

YEARS OF AGITATION AND VARYINGFORTUNES.

I. THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF THE FORTIES.

MARXwas a revolutionary not only in the

sense that he was the representative of a

new conception of society and the founder

of a theory of a new economic order, but also in the

popular sense of advocating the use of force, in which

connection he looked to the first years of the French

Revolution as a model. He had a keen ear for the

revolutionary rumblings in the depths of the populace.

The years during which the elements of his new

conception of society were accumulating in his mind

and shaping themselves into a system were involved

in a revolutionary atmosphere. In 1842 Englandwitnessed the first strike on a large scale, which

threatened to extend into a general strike and bore a

political revolutionary character. In 1843 and 1844

the idea of the impending revolution was widely spreadin England. Insurrections broke out among the

Silesian weavers in 1844. In 1845 and 1846 Socialism

spread rapidly on all sides in Germany, and Socialist

periodicals appeared in the industrial centres. France

swarmed with Socialist systems, Socialist novels and

newspaper articles. The spectre of Communism was

abroad in Europe. The convention of the United

Assembly by Frederick William IV. at the beginningof February, 1847, was looked upon as the harbinger

of the German Revolution. The connection between

39


these phenomena could not escape acute intellects.

Hand in hand with the extension of industry and the

rapid construction of railways and telegraphs came

alternations of economic prosperity and crisis, poverty

grew, and the workers fought with ever-increasing

bitterness against the iron law of wages and against

the scanty pay, which hardly allowed the proletariat

to eke out a bare subsistence. The cry in Englandwas :

" More factories, more poverty," but at the

same time :" The greater the political rights of the

masses, the surer becomes emancipation." Whoeverlived in England and France during these years and

had dealings with Socialism could not help feeling that

political and social revolutions were on the march.

Already in his first letter to Ruge, written from

Holland in March, 1843, Marx deals with the coming

revolution, and foresees, to the astonishment of Ruge,who refused to believe it, that the Government of

Frederick William IV. was drifting towards a revolu-

tion. At that time Marx had hardly begun his studies

in Socialism ; and the further he advanced in these

studies, elaborating his social dialectics and evolving

the ideas of the class struggle, the more inevitably

was he driven to the conclusion that the proletarian

revolution, the seizure of political power by the

proletariat, was the indispensable preliminary to the

triumph of Communism.

Utopian Socialism stood outside the State and

attempted to set up a Socialist Commonwealth apartfrom the State and behind the back of the State.

Utopianism, with its moral and religious motives and

mediaeval Communist traditions, was pervaded with

that spirit of contempt for the State which was char-

acteristic of the Catholic Church during the period of

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO 41

its splendour. Moreover Marx, who recognised

all practical forms of power, even if he did not alwaysestimate them at their true value, saw in the State

an executive power which it was a question of over-

turning and using as an extremely powerful instrument

in the social revolution. As a result of his excursions

into politics and French and English Socialism, Marx

gave up Hegel's overstrained idea of the State and

accepted the view current in Western European

thought of the time; but he interpreted the State in

the sense of the doctrine of the class struggle as the

executive council of the ruling and possessing classes.

The impressions, the ideas, the experiences and

the modes of thinking which took root in the mindof Marx during the evolution of the fundamental

principles of his sociological and historical systemdominated the whole of his life's work.

Marxism is quite a natural growth of the

revolutionary soil of the first half of the nineteenth

century. Marx completes the social revolutionary

doctrines of that time, of which he is, as it were, the

executor. All his thoughts and sentiments are deeplyrooted in it; they have nothing specifically Jewish

about them. I know of no Jewish philosopher,

sociologist, or poet who had so little of the Jewish

character as had Marx.

II. THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO.

As in Paris, so too in Brussels, Marx frequentedthe society of German working men in order to

instruct them by lectures and by conversation. He


was loyally seconded by Engels, who had more time

and more money to devote to this task, and whoworked for the new doctrine in Paris, Cologne,Elberfeld and other towns. Since 1836 the German

working men living abroad had been organised in the

League of the Just, which from 1840 had its head-

quarters in London. The individual groups were

kept in touch with one another by means of Com-munist correspondence committees. The Paris and

Brussels groups drew the attention of the London

Committee to Marx, and in January, 1847, Joseph

Moll, one of its members, was commissioned to goto Brussels and obtain information about Marx.

(" Mehring's Introduction to the Reprint of the

Cologne Communist Proceedings," published byVorwarts, Berlin, 1914, pp. 10-11.) The result

was the transformation of the League of the Just

into the League of Communists, which held its first

Congress in London in the summer of 1847, Engelsand Wilhelm Wolf (Lupus) being among those present

as delegates. At the second Congress, held in London

towards the end of November and beginning of

December, 1847, Marx also appeared, and together

with Engels was commissioned to prepare a new

program. The new program is the Communist

Manifesto. Engels had come from Paris, Marx from

Brussels. Before leaving Paris, Engels wrote a letter

to Marx, dated November 24, in which he speaks as

follows on the subject of the Manifesto :

" Just think over the confession of faith a little.

I believe it will be best if we leave out the form

of catechism and entitle the thing* The Communist

Manifesto.' And then, as more or less of it will


consist in historical narrative, the present form is

quite unsuitable. I am bringing along the manu-

script which I have written ; it is a plain narrative,

but is badly put together, and has been done in

a frightful hurry. I begin,' What is Communism ?

'

and then straight away with the proletariat the

history of its origin, difference from earlier workers,

development of the antagonism of the proletariat

and the middle class, crises, conclusions, with all

kinds of secondary considerations thrown in, and

lastly party politics of the Communists, as muchas is good for the public to know." (" Correspond-ence of Marx and Engels," Vol. I., p. 84.)

Engels' draft of the Communist Manifesto has

been edited by Eduard Bernstein. (" Grundsatze des

Kominunismus," published by Vorwarts, 1914.)

A comparison of this draft with the actual " Com-munist Manifesto " makes evident the full extent of

Marx's intellectual superiority to Engels. The Com-munist Manifesto contains four main groups of ideas :

(1) The history of the evolution of the middle class,

its character, its positive and negative achievement

modern capitalism and the rise of the proletariat.

(2) Theoretical conceptions and conclusions the

doctrine of the class struggle and the role of the

proletariat. (3) Practical application revolutionaryaction by the Communists. (4) Criticism of other

Socialist schools. The last section has long ago lost

all practical interest, so that we need only deal with

the first three sections.

(1) The middle class developed in the bosom of

feudal society, in the mediaeval industrial towns.

With the geographical discoveries of the sixteenth and


seventeenth centuries its sphere of activity was

extended; it revolutionised the methods of industry,

agriculture and communication; it broke through the

mediaeval economic and political bonds ; it overthrew

feudalism, the guilds, the little self-governing regions,

absolute monarchy, and established modern industrywith its accelerated and concentrated production,middle-class franchise, the national State, and, at the

same time, international trade. It was the middle

class which first showed what human activity can

accomplish."

It has achieved greater miracles than

the construction of Egyptian pyramids, Roman

aqueducts, or Gothic cathedrals, it has carried out

greater movements than the migration of peoples or

the crusades. . . . Although it is scarcely a

century since it came to be the dominating class, the

middle class has created more powerful and more

gigantic forces of production than all past generations

put together." The subjugation of natural forces,

machinery, the application of chemistry to industry

and to agriculture, steamships, railways, electric

telegraphs, the clearing of whole continents, makingthe rivers navigable, the conjuring forth of whole

peoples out of the ground : that is the positive achieve-

ment of the middle class. Now for the negative : it

created the proletariat, immeasurable, uncontrollable,

anarchical economic conditions, periodical crises

poverty and famine in consequence of over-production

and a glut of wealth, over-driving and reckless

exploitation of the workers, whose labour is boughtin exchange for the minimum quantity of the neces-

saries of life. These facts show that the forces of

production are more extensive and more powerful than

is demanded by the conditions under which they are


operative : the economic system can produce and

deliver more goods than society can use under the

existing laws concerning property, i.e., the distribu-

tion and the effective demand fall short of the

manufacture and the supply. The material forces of

production press upon the limits imposed uponthem by the laws of private property. This happens,

too, because the working class must reduce its

consumption of goods to a minimum in consequenceof the existing laws of property, which give to capital

the right of distribution. All these conditions taken

together, the positive as well as the negative ones,

make possible and give rise to the struggles of the

workers against the middle class and so the produc-tive agents rise in rebellion. These struggles lead to

the organisation of the workers in trade unions, to

the awakening of class consciousness, and, as a result,

to the formation of the political labour party.

(2) The movements within middle-class society, as

well as in feudal and ancient society, where freeman

and slave, patrician and plebeian, baron and serf,

guild-master and journeyman, capitalist and workingman stood and stand in constant antagonism to one

another, prove that the whole history of mankindsince the rise of private ownership is the history of

class struggles, and that in these class struggles,

carried on now openly, now under the surface, either

new forms of society and of ownership, new economic

systems arise or else end with the common destruction

of the two classes. The antagonistic classes are

supporters of conflicting economic interests, systemsof ownership and ideals of culture. The craftsman

and tradesman of the towns, the burgher, fought

against the feudal lord and knight for individual


property, for freedom of industry and trade, for

freedom to dispose of personal property and for the

national State. With the triumphal progress of the

middle class private property fell into fewer and fewer

hands. The proletarians are without property, theyhave no share in the wealth of their country; on the

other hand, the production of capital becomes moreand more a matter of common co-operation, and

capital becomes a joint product. The proletariat can,

accordingly, no longer fight for individual ownershipbut for the socially conducted utilisation of the meansof production belonging to the community and of the

goods produced. The middle class has therefore

created in the proletariat a social class which must

have as its object to do away with the middle class

system of ownership and to set up the proletarian

system of common ownership.

(3) In this struggle of the working classes the

Communists are therefore the pioneers of the move-

ment. They are at once the philosophers and the

self sacrificing champions of the proletariat awakened

into class consciousness. " The Communists are not

a special party in contradistinction to the other

Labour parties. They have no interests apart from

the interests of the whole proletariat. They set upno special principles according to which they wish to

mould the proletarian movement." The Communists

lay stress on the common interests of the whole

proletariat and of the collective movement. Their

aim is the organisation of the proletariat into a class,

the overthrow of middle-class domination, and the

conquest of political power by the proletariat. Theysupport everywhere

"any revolutionary movement

against the existing social and political conditions.


In all these movements they emphasise the question

of property, in whatever state of evolution it mayappear, as the foundation of the movement. And

finally the Communists work everywhere for the union

and agreement of democratic parties* of all nationali-

ties. The Communists disdain to conceal their views

and intentions. They declare openly that their ends

can only be attained by the forcible overthrow of

every obtaining order of society. Let the ruling

classes tremble before a Communist revolution; the

workers have nothing to lose fey it but their chains.

They have the world to win. Workers of every land,

unite !

"

From the standpoint of social philosophy, the

Manifesto, a document reflecting its time, is almost

perfect. Strong emotion and extraordinary intellec-

tual power are united in it. Years of study of one

of the boldest and most fertile minds are here welded

together in the glowing heat of one of the most active

of intellectual workshops. But the work is not free

from logical flaws. In the passages we have

quoted the part played in history by the middle class

is extolled by Marx; yet in the last few lines of the

very same section he declares that " the middle class

is the unwitting and inert instrument of industrial

progress," and still more scathing is his criticism in

the second section, where the middle class is accused

of indolence. "It has been objected that, if private

property were done away with, all activity would

cease and a general laziness set in. According to that,

middle-class society would have been ruined by idle-

ness long ago; for those of its members who work

gain nothing, and those who gain do not work." That

* By democratic parties were then understood working-class politicalmovements, such as Chartism, etc.


is as much as to say that the middle class is lazy and

does not work, and yet the Manifesto says that the

middle class has achieved more marvellous works than

Egypt, Rome, and the Middle Ages, and that, in its

reign of power of scarcely a hundred years, it has

created more powerful and more gigantic forces of

production than all past generations put together.

How can a class which does not work produce more

marvellous works than the whole ancient and

mediaeval world?

Marx frees himself later from this inconsistency by

ascribing surplus value solely to the operation of the

variable part of capital (wage-labour) a doctrine

which he develops with iron logic in his principal

work,"

Capital."

III. THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.

The ink had hardly dried on the Communist

Manifesto when the February Revolution broke out.

The crowing of the Gallic cock soon awoke an echo

in the various German States, whilst in Brussels the

democrats were attacked and ill-treated by the mob.

One of the victims of this attack was Karl Marx,who was, moreover, banished shortly afterwards bythe Belgian Government. This action, however, did

not cause him any embarrassment, as he was readyin any case to proceed to Paris, whither the

Provisional Government of the French Republic had

already invited him in the following terms :

THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 49

"Paris, March 1, 1848.

*' BRAVE AND FAITHFUL MARX," The soil of the French Republic is a place of

refuge for all friends of freedom. Tyranny has

banished you; France, the free, opens to you her

gates to you and to all who fight for the holy

cause, the fraternal cause of every people. In this

sense shall every officer of the French Government

understand his duty. Salut et Fraternite.

FERDINAND FLOCON,Member of the Provisional Government."

The stay in Paris was, however, of short duration.

Marx and Engels gathered together the members of

the League of Communists and procured them the

means for returning to Germany to take part in the

German revolution. They themselves travelled to the

Rhineland and succeeded in getting the establishment

of the newspaper planned in Cologne into their hands.

On the first of June, 1848, the Neue Rheinische

Zeitung appeared for the first time. It goes without

saying that the editor was Karl Marx, and amonghis collaborators were Engels, Freiligrath, Wilhelm

Wolff, and Georg Weerth. Occasionally, too, Lassalle

sent contributions. It is but rarely given to a daily

paper to have such an editorial staff. In the third

volume of his " Collected Papers of Marx and Engels,"Franz Mehring gives a selection of the articles which

appeared in this journal. They are still worth reading.Here are a few examples. After the fall of Vienna

he wrote an article concluding with the followingwords :

" With the victory of the ' Red Republic'

in Paris the armies from the inmost recesses of every


land will be vomited forth upon the boundaries and

over them, and the real strength of the combatants

will clearly appear. Then we shall remember June

and October, and we too shall cry,* Woe to the

vanquished !

' The fruitless butcheries which have

occurred since those June and October dayswill convince the peoples that there is only one means

of shortening, simplifying, and concentrating the

torturing death agonies of society only one means

revolutionary terrorism." (Neue Rheinische Zeitung,

November 6, 1848.)

Or take, for example, this passage from the last

article of the paper, when on May 18, 1849, it suc-

cumbed to the "craft and cunning of the dirty West

Kalmucks "(i.e., the Prussians).

" In taking leave of our readers we remind them

of the words in our first January number :

' Revolu-

tionary upheaval of the French working class, general

war that is the index for the year 1849. And already

in the east a revolutionary army comprised of warriors

of all nationalities stands confronting the old Europe

represented by and in league with the Russian army,

already from Paris looms the Red Republic.''

In reading these extracts one has only to substitute

Russia for France and Moscow for Paris and we get

at one of the sources of Lenin's and Trotsky's

revolutionary policy. The articles written by Marxin 1848 and 1849 have supplied the Bolsheviks their

tactics.

The censorship, Press lawsuits, and the decline of

the revolution severed the life threads of the paperafter scarcely a year of its existence. Marx sacrificed

everything he had in money and valuables in all,

7,000 thalers in order to satisfy creditors and to pay

DAYS IN LONDON 51

the contributors and printers. Then he travelled to

Paris, where he witnessed not the triumph of the Red

Republic but that of the counter-revolution. In July,

1849, he was banished by the French Government to

the boggy country of Morbihan, in Brittany; he

preferred, however, to go over to London, where he

remained to the end of his life.

IV. DAYS OF CLOUD AND SUNSHINE IN LONDON.

Marx lived for more than a generation in London.

Half of this time was spent in a wearying struggle

for existence, which, however, did not prevent him

from collecting and systematising a vast amount of

material for his life-work,"

Capital," nor from takinga decisive part in the Labour movement as soon as

the opportunity presented itself, as it did on the

founding of the International. The first decade was

particularly trying. A letter written on May 20, 1851,

by Marx's wife to Weydemeyer, in America, gives

an affecting picture of their poverty during these first

years of exile. (" Neue Zeit," 25th year, Vol. II.,

pp. 18-21.)

The attempt to continue the Neue Rheinische

Zeitung under the title Neue Rheinische Revue had

only the negative result of swallowing up Marx's last

resources. How poor Marx then was can be judgedfrom the fact that he had to send his last coat to the

pawnshop in order that he might buy paper for his

pamphlet on the Cologne Communist trial (towardsthe end of 1852). On top of all this, lamentable

differences sprang up among the German exiles,


who, deceived in their revolutionary illusions, over-

whelmed one another with recriminations; an echo

of these conflicts is heard in the pamphlet" Herr

Vogt"

(1860). Marx's only regular source of income

in the years 1851 60 was his earnings as correspon-

dent of the New York Tribune, which paid him at the

rate of a sovereign per article, and this hardly covered

his rent and the cost of newspapers and postage. Yet

his articles were veritable essays, the fruit of researches

which cost him a good deal of time. And in the midst

of this penury the idea of writing a Socialistic criticism

of political economy burnt within him. One mightalmost say that since 1845 this idea had allowed him

no peace. Freiligrath's lines are, as it were, stamped

upon him :

In the clouds his goal he planted;In the dust had he to live,

Bare existence daily granted.

Cramped, hemmed in on every side,

Pinched by poverty and urged

By want, he, of all denied,

By necessity was scourged.

Only in the sixties did his fortunes improve. Small

family inheritances, Wilhelm Wolff's legacy of over

800, and Engels' more plentiful and regular help,

which from 1869 onward amounted to about 350

annually, enabled Marx to write his"

Capital," the

first volume of which, as is well known, is dedicated

to Wilhelm Wolff.

To these relatively happy times belong Paul

Lafargue's reminiscences (" Neue Zeit," 9th year,

Vol. I., pp. 10-17, 87-42) of his intercourse with the

DAYS IN LONDON 53

Marx family. In particular he depicts the personality

of the author of"

Capital." In the bosom of his

family and among the circle of his friends on Sunday

evenings Marx was a genial companion, full of wit

and humour. " His dark black eyes sparkled with

mirth and with a playful irony whenever he heard a

witty remark or a prompt repartee." He was a

tender, indulgent father, who never asserted the

parental authority. His wife was his helper and

companion in the truest sense of the word. She was

four years older than he, and notwithstanding her

aristocratic connections and in spite of the great

hardships and persecutions which for years she had

to suffer by the side of her husband, she never

regretted having taken the step which linked her

destiny with that of Marx. She possessed a cheerful,

bright disposition and an unfailing tact, easily

winning the esteem of every one of her husband's

acquaintances, friends, and followers." Heinrich

Heine, the relentless satirist, feared Marx's scorn; but

he cherished the greatest admiration for the keen,

sensitive mind of Marx's wife. Marx esteemed so

highly the intelligence and the critical sense of his

wife that he told me in 1866 he had submitted all

his manuscripts to her and that he set a high value

upon her judgment." Six children were born to the

Marxes, four girls and two boys, of whom only three

of the girls grew up Jenny, who married Charles

Longuet; Laura, who became the wife of Paul

Lafargue; and the unhappy but highly-gifted

Eleanor, who spent 14 sad years of her life by the

side of Dr. Edward Avelihg.

The sixties were undoubtedly the happiest yearsof Marx's life, and seemed to promise an abundant


harvest in his later life. But his health soon beganto fail, and did not allow him to complete his work.

The most productive years of Marx's life were

between 1837 and 1847 and between 1857 and 1871.

All his valuable work falls within these years : the"Poverty of Philosophy," the Communist Mani-

festo, his activity in the International,"

Capital/'the Civil War in France (the Commune).

V. THE INTERNATIONAL.

The economic studies necessitated by his book"

Capital" led Marx into the study of the social

history of England during the eighteenth and nine-

teenth centuries, and gave him an insight into the

working-class movements of those times such as but

few scholars, English or foreign, have acquired. Hebecame familiar with the modes of thought and

expression of the working-class revolutionary move-

ments, and especially of the Chartist movement, with

the surviving leaders and adherents of which he was

personally acquainted. Always eager to obtain

knowledge of the actual working-class movement and

to take part in it, he watched the activities of the

English working class, which in the fifties was mainly

occupied with purely trade unionist questions, being,

politically, still in the Liberal camp. A changeseemed imminent, however, about the beginning of

the sixties. The London Labour leaders began to

think about a Parliamentary reform movement, about

starting a campaign for universal suffrage, which was

an old Chartist demand. Likewise they manifested

THE INTERNATIONAL 55

an interest in the fate of Poland and in other inter-

national questions concerning liberty.

At the International Exhibition held in London in

1862, the Labour leaders made the acquaintance of a

deputation of French working men, with whom theyafterwards carried on a correspondence. In 1863 and

1864, in the course of this correspondence, the idea

of founding an international union of workers was

mooted ; and in the fourth week of September, 1864,

this idea was carried into effect. Labour delegates

from Paris and London held a conference in Londonfrom the 25th to the 28th of September, and the

event was celebrated by a public gathering in St.

Martin's Hall on the evening of the 28th. Marxreceived an invitation to this meeting in order

that the German workers might be representedthere. This conference and meeting resulted in the

formation of the International Working Men's

Association. Committees and sub-committees were

elected to draw up a declaration of principles and

outline the constitution. One of Mazzini's followers

and a Frenchman submitted schemes which were

handed over to Marx to be elaborated by him. He

consigned them to the waste-paper basket and wrote

the "Inaugural Address," giving a history of the

English workers since the year 1825, and deducingthe necessary conclusions. The declaration of prin-

ciples is entirely the work of Marx, and it is byno means a subtly and diplomatically conceived

composition designed to please English and French

working men ; it consists essentially of Marxian ideas

expressed in terms, however, which would appeal to

English working men of that time. "It was difficult,"

writes Marx to Engels (" Correspondence," Vol.


III., p. 191)" so to arrange matters that our view

should appear in a form which would prove accept-

able to the working-class movement with its present

outlook. ... It needs time before the re-

animated movement will allow of the old boldness

of speech. One must go fortiter in re, suaviter in

modo (firmly maintaining essential principles with a

pleasant manner)."The Inaugural Address sums up the history of the

English working class from 1825 to 1864, and shows

that from its struggles, as indeed from modern social

history in general, the following lessons may be

learnt by the proletariat : independent economic and

political action by the working class ; the turning to

account of reforms forced out of the ruling classes

by the proletariat; international co-operation of

workers in the Socialist revolution and against secret,

militarist diplomacy.Marx devoted a great deal of his time during the

years 1865 to ]871 to the International. Its progress

awoke in him the greatest hopes. In 1867 he writes

to Engels :

"Things are moving. And in the next

revolution, which is perhaps nearer than it seems,

we (i.e., you and I) have this powerful machineryin our hands." (" Correspondence of Marx and

Engels," Vol. III., p. 406.)

The International passed through three phases :

from 1865 to 1867 the followers of Proudhon held

sway ; from 1868 to 1870 Marxism was in the ascend-

ant; from 1871 to its collapse it was dominated and

ultimately broken up by the Bakunists. The

followers of Proudhon, like those of Bakunin, were

against political action and in favour of the federative

economic form of social organisation, only the

THE INTERNATIONAL 57

Bakunists were also Communists, whereas the

followers of Proudhon had an antipathy to Commun-ism. Both groups were in agreement with Marx only

on the one point that he made~economics the basis

of the working-class movement. Both groups, how-

ever, accused him of being dictatorial, of attemptingto concentrate the whole power of the International

in his own hands. Besides insurmountable theoretical

differences, racial and national prejudices crept into

the International as disintegrating factors. The

Romance and Russian Anarchists looked upon Marxas a pan-German, and conversely, some Marxians

considered Bakunin a pan-Slav. Even as late as 1914,

in the first months of the war, Professor James

Guillaume, the last of the Bakunists, wrote a

pamphlet entitled " Karl Marx, Pangermaniste"

(Paris).

Michael Bakunin (b. 1814, near Twer, in Russia;

d. 1876, in Berne) lived and studied in Germanyduring the forties. In 1848 and 1849 he took partin the revolution, was arrested, then handed over to

Russia and banished to Siberia, whence he escapedin 1856, afterwards living in various countries of

Western Europe. He was an indifferent theorist, and

contributed little to the enrichment of philosophical

Anarchism, but he distinguished himself by his

immense revolutionary activity and his capacity for

sacrifice. The influence which he exercised sprangfrom his character. He had been acquainted with

the Young Hegelians as well as with Marx, Engels,and Wilhelm Wolff since the beginning of the forties.

Until the end of 1868 he acknowledged Marx as his

intellectual leader, as is evident from the following

letter which he addressed to Marx :


"123, Montbrillant, Geneva,

" December 22, 1868.

" Serno has shown me the portion of your letter

which concerns me. You ask him whether I amstill your friend. Yes, more than ever, my dear

Marx, for now I understand better than ever how

truly right you are when you advance along the

high road of economic revolution and invite us to

follow, and when you set those below us who

stray into the side-tracks either of national or

exclusively political enterprises. I am now doingthe same thing that you have been doing for more

than twenty years. Since my solemn public leave-

taking from the bourgeois of the Berne Congress,

I no longer know any other society, any other

milieu, than the world of the workers. Henceforth

my country is the '

International,' of which you are

one of the most illustrious founders. You see, mydear friend, that I am your disciple and I am

proud of it. That will be enough to make clear

my attitude and my feelings toward you."

(" Neue Zeit," 19th year, Vol. I., p. 6.)

Nevertheless, this discipleship did not hinder

Bakunin from secretly forming a separate organisa-

tion which contributed to the break-up of the

International. Moreover, the International was onlya kind of school for Socialist officers who had yet to

create their armies, but it proved even more success-

ful than Marx himself could have expected. The

fundamental principles of Marxism ousted every other

social revolutionary system which had made itself

prominent within the working-class movement.

THE PARIS COMMUNE 59

VI. THE PARIS COMMUNE.

On September 1, 1870, a part of the French Armywas defeated near Sedan and compelled to capitulate

on the following day- Among the prisoners was

Louis Bonaparte, the French Emperor. The Empirefell on September 4, and France was proclaimed a

Republic. On September 6 Marx wrote to Engels :

*' The French section of the International travelled

from London to Paris in order to do foolish things in

the name of the International. They want to over-

throw the Provisional Government and set up a

Commune de Paris.9 '

(" Correspondence," Vol. IV.,

p. 330).

Although the Provisional Government of the newly-baked French Republic was in no wise made up of

friends of the democracy, Marx and Engels expressedthemselves against any revolutionary action by the

Paris working class. In the second Address (or

declaration) of the General Council of the Inter-

national, written on September 9, and composed byMarx, the question is discussed as follows :

" Thus the French working class finds itself

placed in extremely difficult circumstances. Anyattempt to overthrow the new Government, whenthe enemy is already knocking at the gates of Paris,

would be a hopeless piece of folly. The French

workers must do their duty as citizens; but theymust not let themselves be overcome by the

national reminiscences of 1792 Theyhave not to repeat the past but to build the future.

Let them quietly and with determination make the

most of the republican freedom granted to them,in order to carry out thoroughly the organisation


of their own class. That will give give them new,Herculean strength for the rebirth of France and

for our common task the emancipation of the

proletariat." (" Civil War in France," Second

Address.)

Marx then urged the French workers not to do

anything foolish, not to set up a revolutionary

Commune of Paris, but to make use of their repub-lican liberties to create proletarian organisations and

to save and discipline their forces for future tasks.

Circumstances, however, proved much stronger than

any words of wisdom. Goaded by the anti-

democratic moves of the Government supporters,

deeply humiliated by the defeats of the French army,

burning with patriotism and whipped up into fury

against the "capitulards," the Paris working men

cast Marx's words to the winds and rose in revolution

on March 18, 1871, proclaiming the Paris Commune.Paris was to be the capital of a Socialist Republic.

In seven weeks the Paris Revolution was overthrown

and " Vae victis !

"(Woe to the vanquished !)

Marx afterwards wrote the pamphlet on " The Civil

War in France, 1871," which is one of the most

mature of his writings. He did not cut himself entirely

adrift from the revolutionaries the Bolsheviks of that

time but defended them with unsurpassable energy.

It is the swan song of Marx and of the first Inter-

national.

VII. THE EVENING OF LIFE.

During the last twelve years of his life Marx had

to fight almost uninterruptedly against various bodily

THE EVENING OF LIFE 61

ailments, all of which had their origin in his chronic

liver complaint and over-exertion. His work, for

which he had sacrificed, as he wrote to an American

friend,"

health, happiness and family," remained

unfinished. He devoted his enforced leisure to

making a study of American agriculture and of rural

conditions in Russia, for which purpose he learnt

Russian; he likewise occupied himself with studies of

the Stock Exchange, banking, geology, physiology,and higher mathematics. In 1875 he wrote his"

Criticism of the Gotha Program"

(" Neue Zeit,"

9th year, Vol. I., No. 18) which contains some

very important data as to Marx's attitude to the

State, to the revolutionary period of transition from

Capitalism to Socialism, and lastly to Socialist society

itself.

He went to Karlsbad for the purpose of recovering

his health. In 1877 and 1878 he was in some measure

capable of carrying on his work, and set about

arranging his manuscripts and getting the second

volume of "Capital

"ready for the press; it soon

appeared, however, that his capacity for work had

gone. The decline in body and mind could no longer

be checked ;even visits to French and Algerian

watering-places proved ineffective. It was just at this

time that Marx began to find recognition both in

France and in England : Jules Guesde, Henry M.

Hyndman, Belfort Bax set about spreading Marxian

doctrines, and Marxian and anti-Marxian parties

were formed. But the man to whom this recognition

had come was already a ruin. Bronchial catarrh,

inflammation of the lungs, spasmodic asthma,

together with the loss of his wife on December 2,

1881, and of his eldest daughter (Mme. Longuet) in


January, 3883, gave the finishing stroke to his

enfeebled body. On March 14, 1883, Marx breathed

his last. Engels gives an account of the last moments

in a letter to his American friend Sorge, dated March

15, 1883 :

"Yesterday, at half-past two in the afternoon,

the best time for visiting him, I went down to see

him ; everybody was in tears ; it looked as if the

end had come. I made inquiries, trying to get at

the truth of the matter and to offer consolation.

There had been a slight haemorrhage, but a sudden

collapse had supervened. Our good old Lena, whohad tended him better than any mother does her

child, went up, came down. He was half asleep,

she said; I could go up. As we went in, he lay

there, sleeping, never to wake again. Pulse and

breathing had ceased. In those two minutes he had

gone painlessly and peacefully to sleep

Mankind is less by a head, and indeed by the most

important head it had to-day. The working-class

movement will pursue its course, but its central

point, to which French, Russians, Americans, and

Germans turned of their own accord in decisive

moments, always to receive that clear, unambiguouscounsel which genius and perfect mastery alone can

give is gone."

On Saturday, March 17, he was buried in the

Highgate Cemetery, London. Among those who spokeat the graveside were Friedrich Engels*and Wilhelm

Liebknecht. The former gave a brief account of his

revolutionary struggles, in which he said :

THE EVENING OF LIFE 63

" Just as Darwin discovered the law of the

evolution of organic nature, so Marx discovered the

evolutionary law of human history the simple fact,

hitherto hidden under ideological overgrowths, that

above all things men must eat, drink, dress, and

find shelter before they can give themselves to

politics, science, art, religion, or anything else, and

that therefore the production of the material

necessaries of life and the corresponding stage of

economic evolution of a people or a period providesthe foundation upon which the national institu-

tions, legal systems, art, and even religious ideas

of the people in question have been built, and uponwhich, therefore, their explanation must be based,

a procedure the reverse of that which has hitherto

been adopted. Marx discovered also the special law

of motion for the modern capitalist mode of pro-duction and for the middle-class society which it

begets. With the discovery of surplus value light

was at once thrown upon a subject, all the earlier

investigations of which, whether by middle-class

economists or by Socialist critics, had been gropingsin the dark. . . ."

After him spoke Liebknecht, who had hastened

from Germany to pay a last tribute to his friend and

master :

" The dead one, whose loss we mourn, was great

in his love and in his hate. His hate sprang from

his love. He had a great heart, as he had a greatintellect. He has raised social democracy from a

sect, from a school, to a party, which now already

fights unconquered, and in the end will win the

victory."


Engels, who outlived him by twelve years, edited

the two last volumes of "Capital," while Karl

Kautsky, the disciple and successor of Engels and

the real disseminator of Marxian doctrines, edited the

three volumes of Marx's historical studies on surplus

value. The latter work is not far short of being a

great history of political economy.

IV.

THE MARXIAN SYSTEM.

I. THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.

ASa guide to his studies from 1843-4 onwards,Marx used the conception of history, or

method of investigation, which in contra-

distinction to the idealist conception of history of

Hegel was named materialistic. As its nature is

dialectic as it seeks to conceive in thought the

evolving antagonisms of the social process it is, like

Hegel's dialectic, a conception of history and a methodof investigation at the same time. Nowhere did Marxwork out his method of investigation in a special and

comprehensive form ; the elements of it are scattered

throughout his writings, particularly in the CommunistManifesto and in the "

Poverty of Philosophy," and

serve the purpose of polemics or demonstration. Onlyin the preface to his book,

" On the Critique of

Political Economy"

(1859) did he devote two pagesto a sketch of his conception of history, but in

phraseology which is not always clear, sequential, or

free from objection. It was the intention of Marx to

write a work on Logic, where he would certainly have

formulated clearly his materialistic dialectic. As,

however, his fundamental ideas on this subject are

available, we are able to extract the essentials of his

position.

A glance over human history suffices to teach us

that from age to age man has held to be true or false

various opinions on rights, customs, religion, the

65 a


State, philosophy, land-holding, trade, industry, etc.,

that he has had various economic arrangements, and

forms of the State and of society, and that he has

gone through an endless series of struggles and wars

and migrations. How has this complicated varietyof human thought and action come about? Marxraises that question, which, so far as he is concerned,

does not aim in the first place at the discovery of

the origin of thought, of rights, of religion, of society,

of trade, etc. ; these he takes to be historically given.

He is rather concerned to find out the causes, the

impulses, or the springs which produce the changesand revolutions of the essentials and forms of the

mental and social phenomena, or which create the

tendencies thereto. In a sentence : What interested

Marx here was not the origin, but the developmentand change of things he is searching for the dynamiclaw of history.

Marx answered : The prime motive power of human

society, which is responsible for the changes of humanconsciousness and thought, or which causes the various

social institutions and conflicts to arise, does not

originate, in the first place, from thought, from the

Idea, from the world-reason or the world-spirit, but

from the material conditions of life. The basis of

human history is therefore material. The material

conditions of life that is, the manner in which menas social beings, with the aid of environing nature,

and of their own in-dwelling physical and intellectual

qualities, shape their material life, provide for their

sustenance, and produce, distribute and exchange the

necessary goods for the satisfaction of their needs.

Of all categories of material conditions of existence,

the most important is production of the necessary

CONCEPTION OF HISTORY 67

means of life. And this is determined by the nature

of the productive forces. These are of two kinds :

inanimate and personal. The inanimate productive

forces are : soil, water, climate, raw materials, tools

and machines. The personal productive forces are :

the labourers, the inventors, discoverers, engineers,

and finally, the qualities of the race the inherited

capacities of specific groups of men, which facilitate

work.

The foremost place among the productive forces

belongs to the manual and mental labourers ; they are

the real creators of exchange-value in capitalist

society. The next place of importance is taken bymodern technology, which is an eminently revolu-

tionising force in society. (" Capital"

(German),Vol. I., Chapters 1, 12, 13 and 14,

"Poverty of

Philosophy"

(German edition, 1885, pp. 100-101.)

So much for the conception" Productive Forces,"

which plays an important part with Marx. Wecome now to the other equally important notion," Conditions of production." By this phrase Marxunderstands the legal and State forms, ordinances and

laws, as well as the grouping of social classes and

sections : thus, the social conditions which regulate

property and determine the reciprocal human relations

in which production is carried on. The conditions of

production are the work of men in society. Just as

men produce various material goods out of the

materials and forces made available to them byNature, so they create out of the reactions of the

productive forces upon the mind definite social,

political, and legal institutions, as well as systems of

religion, morals, and philosophy.


" Men make their own history, but do not so

spontaneously in conditions chosen by them, but on

the contrary, in conditions which they have found

ready to hand transmitted and given." (Marx," The

Eighteenth Brumaire," I.)

That is to say, under the influence oi productivework and its needs, men build their form of society,

their State, their religion, their philosophy and

science. The material production is the substructure

or the groundwork, while the corresponding political,

religious, and philosophical systems are the super-

structure. And in such a manner that the super-

structure corresponds to the foundation, lends it

strength, and promotes its development.The foundation is material, and the superstructure

is the psychical reflex and effect.

In broad outlines this conception may be illustrated

somewhat as follows :

Primitive human groups lived under Communismand were organised according to blood relationship.

Their deities have the characteristics of their natural

environment, and reflect the physical effects of this

environment upon the primitive mental life of the"

savage"

; their religion, their morality, and their

laws promote the communal life and the tribal dis-

cipline. Feudal society is based on the possession of

land by the nobles and on the industrial labour of

the corporations of the towns. The inherited religious

ideas are soon transformed in accordance with the

dominant interests of these historical periods (primi-

tive Christianity became a State religion) ; all religious,

ethical, and philosophical ideas antagonistic to these

interests were fought and persecuted. The middle-

class society, which is based on personal property, is


endeavouring to sweep away all vestiges of communaland corporation rights, to set free the individual, to

mobilise labour and property, to abolish Feudalism and

the old Church and monasterial institutions, and to

put in their place the individual relation between manand God, or the personal conscience (the Reforma-

tion), introducing individual rights as well;it struggles

against the independent sovereignty of the feudal

domains, and labours for a unified national territory,

which will afford greater scope to trade and commerce ;

it supports Absolutism, so long as the latter is in

conflict with the feudal lords ; and when, afterwards,

Absolutism is a hindrance to the development of

middle-class society, this also is fought and a consti-

tutional monarchy or a republic demanded. And all

this takes place not because certain human intelli-

gences, by reason of more intense thought, or

enlightenment, or the call of a supernatural power,are primarily at work, but as a consequence of the

influence of the material basis, of the economic

foundation of society, upon the mind, which translates

and transforms these external realities into religious,

juridical, and philosophic conceptions :

"It is not the consciousness of men which

determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their

social existence determines their consciousness."

(Marx, Preface to "Critique of Political Economy.")

Man, even the most heroic, is not the sovereign

maker and law-giver of social life, but its executive;

he only follows out the tendencies and currents set

up by the material foundation of society. Never-

theless, a great deal depends upon the executive

officials. If they possess comprehensive knowledge,

energetic natures, and outstanding capacities, they


are able, within the boundaries drawn for them, to

accomplish great things, and to accelerate the

development."Up to the present the philosophers have but

interpreted the world; it is, however, necessary to

change it." (Marx," Theses to Feuerbach.")

We have referred in various places to interests.

We are not to understand by this personal, but general

social or class interests. Marx is not of the opinion

that everybody acts hi accordance with his personal

welfare. This is not Marxian doctrine, but that of

the middle-class moral philosophers, like Helvetius

(1715 1771) and Jeremy Bentham (17481832), who

regarded pleasure and pain of the individual as the

measure and motive of his actions and conduct.

Marx is rather of the opinion that men often, in the

most important events of their lives, act contrary to

their personal interests, as in their feelings and

thoughts they identify themselves with that which

they hold to be the interests of the community or of

their class. According to Marx, individual interest

generally plays a slight part in history. He is

preoccupied with the collective interest of social

production. Only the latter does he hold to be

determining in the formation of the intellectua

superstructure.

Up till now we have only spoken of various forms

of production and society, and their corresponding

mental systems. But we do not yet know why and

how one form of production and society becomes

obsolete and gives place to another, that is, how and

why revolutionary changes are brought about. Or

in other words : we have hitherto considered the

statics of society; we will now look at its dynamics.


The revolutionary changes in society depend on two

groups of phenomena, which, although casually

connected with each other, yet work differently. Oneof these groups of phenomena is technical, and

consists in changes in the productive forces. The other

group, which is the effect of the first, is of a personal

nature, and consists in struggles between the social

classes. Let us consider the first group of causes.

As the productive forces expand, through greater

skill on the part of the worker, through discoveries

of new raw material and markets, through the

invention of new labour processes, tools and

machines, and through the better organisation of

trade and exchange, so that the material basis or the

economic foundation of society is altered, then the

old conditions of production cease to promote the

interests of production. For the conditions of pro-

duction : the former social classes, the former laws,

State institutions, and intellectual systems were

adapted to a state of the productive forces which is

either in process of disappearing, or no longer exists.

The social and intellectual superstructure no longer

corresponds to the economic foundation. The pro-

ductive forces and the conditions of production come

into conflict with each other.

This conflict between the new reality and the old

form , this conflict between new causes and the obsolete

effects of bygone causes, begins gradually to influence

the thoughts of men. Men commence to feel that theyare confronted with a new external world, and that

a new era has been opened.Social divisions acquire a new significance : classes

and sections which were formerly despised gain in

social and economic power; classes which were


formerly honoured decline. While this transforma-

tion of the social foundation is proceeding, the old

religious, legal, philosophical, and political systems

cling to their inherited positions, and insist on

remaining, although they are obsolete and can no

longer satisfy mental needs. For human thoughtis conservative : it follows external events slowly, just

as our eye perceives the sun at a point which the

sun has in reality already passed, as the rays requireseveral minutes of time in order to strike our optic

nerves. We may recall Hegel's fine metaphor :

" TheOwl of Minerva begins its flight only when twilight

gathers." However late, it does begin. Great

thinkers gradually arise, who explain the new situa-

tion, and create new ideas and trains of thought which

correspond to the new situation. The humanconsciousness gives birth to anxious doubts and

questionings, and then new truths ; leading to differ-

ences of opinion, disputes, strifes, schisms, class

struggles, and revolutions.

In the next chapter we will consider more closely

the class struggle between Labour and Capital.

Meanwhile, we will look at the class struggle generally.

In primitive societies, where private property is

yet unknown, or still undeveloped, there are no class

distinctions, no class domination, and no class

antagonisms. The chief, the medicine man, and the

judge regulate or supervise the observance of the

customary usages, religious ceremonies, and social

arrangements. But as soon as the old order is

dissolved, and private property develops, in con-

sequence of trade with other peoples or through wars,

there arise classes of those who possess and those whodo not. The possessing class carries on the Govern-

CONCEPTION OF HISTORY ?a

ment, makes laws, and creates institutions, which

chiefly serve the end of protecting the interests of the

possessing and ruling classes. The intellectual struc-

ture of the class society likewise corresponds to the

interests of those who possess and rule. So long as

these interests promote the common good in some

measure, so long as the old forms of production and

the old conditions of production are largely in harmonywith each other, a certain truce prevails between the

classes. But should there set in the above-mentioned

opposition between the productive forces and the

conditions of production, the latter will cease to

satisfy the oppressed classes, and class conflicts will

arise, which will either result in legal compromises

(reforms) or will end in the overthrow of the society

concerned, or will lead to a new set of conditions.

Ancient history (Hebrew, Greek, Roman) is full of

these social struggles; all the great reform laws of

these peoples were attempts to establish social peace,but the rich and the poor, the Patricians and the

Plebeians, the Slaves and Freemen, continued their

struggles until the downfall of the old world, which

has bequeathed to us great intellectual treasures as

the fruit of these struggles. In the Middle Ages social

struggles between the feudal lords and the traders,

between nobles and peasants, were kindled. In more

recent times the middle classes fought Autocracy and

Squirearchy, and at length the proletariat was pitted

against the bourgeoisie class struggles which led to

rebellions and revolutions, and powerfully influenced

the intellectual life.

From these historical antagonisms and struggles

arose the intellectual and political antagonisms,

personified by the leaders of the social groups and


classes, of which world-history relates : opposing

religious and philosophical systems : Brahma and

Buddha, Baal and Jahveh, National God and

Universal God, Heathendom and Christendom,Catholicism and Protestantism, Materialism and

Idealism, Realism and Nominalism. Howeverabstract or metaphysical, however remote from

actual life and material production they may appearto be, nevertheless, in the last resort they are to be

traced back through many intermediate stages to

changes in the economic foundation of the society in

question, to the contradiction between this foundation

and the conditions of production, as well as to the

great struggles between conflicting interests which

spring therefrom. The ethical, political, and politico-

economic systems which strive with each other for

mastery, as well as national and world wars, are

separated from the real basis of society by a progres-

sively smaller number of intermediate stages : the

questions of idealist or utilitarian ethics, monarchyor republic, oligarchy or democracy, protection or

free trade, State regulation or free scope for the

economic forces, Socialism or private enterprise,

etc., however lofty and humanitarian may be the

arguments and ideal motives which their champions

may adduce, are connected with the material foun-

dation and the conditions of production which have

come into conflict with it.

Marx and Engels have set forth this conception in

the Communist Manifesto, in popular form, as

follows :

" Does it require deep intuition to comprehendthat man's ideas, views, and conceptions, in one


word, man's consciousness, changes with every

change in the conditions of his material existence,

in his social relations and in his social life ?

*' What else does the history of ideas prove than

that intellectual production changes in character in

proportion as material production is changed. The

ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas

of its ruling class." When people speak of ideas that revolutionise

society they do but express the fact that within

the old society the elements of a new one have been

created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas

keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old

conditions of existence." When the ancient world was in its last throes

the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity.

When Christian ideas succumbed in the eighteenth

century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its

death-battle with the then revolutionary bour-

geoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom

of conscience merely gave expression to the swayof free competition within the domain of know-

ledge."

Now one step farther. When the conditions of

production, the social divisions into classes, and the

laws of property become fetters to the productive

forces, when the conflict of interests condense them-

selves into class struggles, then comes a period of

social revolution.

" With the change of the economic foundation

the entire immense superstructure is more or less

rapidly transformed. In considering such trans-

formations the distinction should always be made


between the material transformation of the economic

conditions of production which can be determined

with the precision of natural science, and the legal,

political, religious, aesthetic, or philosophic in

short, ideological forms in which men become

conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as

our opinion of an individual is not based on what

he thinks of himself, so we are not able to judge of

such a period of transformation by its own

consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness

must rather be explained from the contradictions

of material life, from the existing conflict between

the social forces of production and the conditions

of production." (Preface to "Critique of Political

Economy.")

The revolutionary period only closes when the

social order that had become full of contradictions

liberates the productive forces and strikes off their

fetters, and creates new conditions of production which

correspond to them. The old society, which is doomedto disappear, evolves the new conditions of existence

before it sinks into oblivion. The men who assist the

progress of the new society accordingly occupythemselves with problems which they are able to

solve, as the means thereto are given in the material

development. Such problems are set before them

because, regarded from the theoretical standpoint,

they are the mental reflex of the contradictions and

revolutionary tendencies within society.

Accordingly, the essence of the historical develop-

ment of human society has been so far the progressive

dialectical unfolding and perfection of the productiveforces.


" In broad outlines," says Marx," we can designate

the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the modern

bourgeois methods of production, as so many epochsin the progress of the economic formation of society.

The bourgeois relations of production are the last

antagonistic form of the social process of production

antagonistic not in the sense of individual antag-

onism, but of one arising from conditions surroundingthe life of individuals in society; at the same time

the productive forces developing in the womb of

bourgeois society create the material conditions for

the solution of that antagonism. This social forma-

tion constitutes, therefore, the closing chapter of the

prehistoric stage of human society."

Prehistoric stage of human society I What sig-

nificant words ! The capitalist economic order is the

last phase of this stage, which is written in streams

of blood and tears of the dispossessed and exploited,

and to which is given the task of developing the

productive forces and liberating men from the

material fetters, so that they may enter into a life

of mental culture. The materialist conception of

history, unethical and unidealist like all natural

science, opens up wide and elevating prospects.

During thousands of years man struggled on the

physical plane to obtain release from the animal

kingdom, and was subjected to the discipline of

unfeeling nature. After he had emerged from the

animal kingdom, man laboured for thousands of

years to lay the foundation of human society, a

process which was performed under the hunger whipof stern taskmasters, and which powerfully stimulated

the intellectual capacities of men, but only disclosed

the ideal of justice and humanity as a remote and

inaccessible star.


The materialist conception of history has shown

itself to be a fruitful method of historical investiga-

tion. Some aspects of this idea were uttered both

before and during Marx's lifetime. The revolution in

the positions of classes and the struggles which

followed hard on the English industrial revolution

(1760 1825), and everywhere attended the transition

from an agrarian to an industrial State, were too

palpable to be overlooked. It was Marx who fused

these ideas, with the aid of the Hegelian dialectics

made of them a method of investigation, and pressedthem into the service of Socialism and historical

research.

II. CLASSES, CLASS STRUGGLES, AND CLASS-

CONSCIOUSNESS.

One of the most important contributions of Marx to

the understanding of historical processes is his

conception of social classes and of class struggles.

Although, prior to Marx, there were historians and

politicians who pointed out the part played by social

classes in politics and in social convulsions, it was

Marx who first grasped this conception in its entire

scope and significance, giving it precise form, and

making it an essential part of political and social

thought. He refers to the subject in the Communist

Manifesto in the following terms :

" The Socialist and Communist systems properly

so called, those of St. Simon, Fourier, Owen, and

others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped

CLASSES AND CLASS STRUGGLES 79

period of the struggle between proletariat and

bourgeoisie. The founders of these systems see,

indeed, the class antagonisms, as well as the action

of the decomposing elements in the prevailing form

of society. But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy,

offers to them the spectacle of a class without anyhistorical initiative or any independent political

movement."

The classification of the various groups of society,

or the division of human society into classes, is as

logical a process, that is, a result attained by the

operations of reason, as the division of animals, plants,

and minerals into various classes. A specific groupof social beings, which bear the stamp of common

characteristics, is put in a certain class by social

science. This classification cannot be made by purely

empirical methods of immediate sensuous perceptions.

It cannot be determined from the appearance of

modern men, whether they are capitalists or workers.

We must look for certain scientifically established

features which determine the social classification of

men. As we have just seen, Marx held economic

facts to be fundamental, and he contended that the

economic characteristics were valid for purposes of

classification. In his view, the manner in which a

specific human group obtained its sustenance was the

chief characteristic. Men whose chief means of life

are wages form the working class. Men whose

most important source of livelihood is the ownershipof capital (land, buildings, workshops, and raw

material) form the capitalist class. It is of little

moment that a worker owns a savings-bankbook, and

draws interest or dividends from a co-operative


society, or that a capitalist personally supervises bis

undertaking, or organises his business, so that his

profits partly consist in wages of superintendence or

salary. The outstanding feature is that the chief

interest of the worker is concentrated on wages, whilst

that of the capitalist is directed on property. It goes

without saying that the social classes are not com-

pletely homogeneous. Like botanical and zoological

classes, they may be divided into kinds and species ;

the working classes include well-paid hand and brain

workers, as well as sweated sections ; but all the sub-

divisions of the social classes possess the common

outstanding quality of the same source of livelihood,

which is either personal labour or the possession of

capital. One class disposes only of labour-power,while the other class owns the means of production.Between these two classes, says Marx, there are

deep-seated, unbridgeable antagonisms, which lead to

a class struggle. The antagonisms are primarily of

an economic nature. The wage-earners, as the owners

of labour power, are constrained to sell this as dear

as possible, i.e., to obtain the highest possible wages,whereas the owners of capital endeavour to buy such

labour-power as cheap as possible, i.e., to pay the

least possible wages. This antagonism is indeed

fundamental, but, at first sight, does not touch the

intellectual sphere very deeply. On the surface, this

antagonism is only one as between buyer and seller,

but in reality the distinction is very great, as the

seller of labour-power will quickly starve if he does

not market his commodity. The owner of the meansof production is therefore in a position to cause the

seller of labour-power to starve, if the latter does not

accept the conditions which the capitalist imposes.


Ownership of capital reveals itself as a power that can

oppress the owner of labour-power.This antagonism leads to the formation of Trade

Unions. It is also the prime cause of the class

struggle, but mere trade unionism is but its incipient

stage. It develops into a class struggle when the

workers recognise that their condition of subjection is

not a temporary state, but the result of the economic

system of private capitalism, that the subjectionwill last so long as this economic system exists,

and that the latter could be replaced by an economic

order in which the means of production belongto all the members of society. The wage-workers

only participate in the class struggle when theylearn to think in a Socialist sense, when hostility

to the existing social order develops out of the

sporadic and unrelated wage struggle and actions

of Trade Unions, and when the proletariat, as

an organised class, turns from the preoccupations of

the present to the tasks of the future, and strives to

change the basis of society from private property to

common property. The workers then become aware

that there can be neither freedom nor equality for

them in the existing society, and that their emancipa-tion can only be attained through Socialism. The

class struggle may, however, stop short at the

recognition of these facts. The dialectical movementwill be incomplete if the working class does not take

its fate into its own hands, and is not convinced that

it has the power to achieve its own emancipation,and therefore contents itself with small social reforms,

or relies on noble-minded and benevolent men and

heroic redeemers. This was actually the case in the

beginnings of the Socialist movement, when the


workers saw in Socialism the only way out, but were

still too weak to take their fate into their own hands.

This was the period which Marx called Utopian, when

outstanding personalities spread Socialist ideas, and

made Socialist plans and experiments to free the

labouring masses. As these personalities knew the

impotence of the masses, they turned to philanthro-

pists and humane rulers, and sought to convince themthat reason, justice, and the general welfare demandedthat Socialism should be introduced, and poverty,

misery, and their consequences abolished. This

period of Utopian Socialism gave way before the

further development of industry, the progress of

machine technique, the centralisation and concentra-

tion of the means of production and exchange, which

brought with it an increase in the number, strength,

organisation, and class-consciousness of the workingclasses. It is the centralisation of the means of

production and exchange, in particular, which

renders it possible for the working class, by paralysing

industry and power stations, to cause the whole of

society to feel that living labour-power forms the soul

of the economic life.

At the same time Socialist investigators appear,who not only show the reasonableness and justice of

Socialism, but exhibit the proof that the new economic

order of Socialism is being prepared in the womb of

Capitalism, and that therefore the aspirations of the

worker are in harmony with the course of social

development.In this wise, a science and an aspiring Socialist

movement founded upon reality develops from

Utopian Socialism, and, conscious of class, of power,and of aim, enters upon the decisive struggle with


the capitalist economic order. The class struggle

acts as a lever of social revolution.

The original antagonism of the worker and capitalist

over wages and hours of labour becomes an impas-sionate struggle of two classes over the question of

the maintenance or transformation of the social and

economic system one of which classes fights for the

existing order of private property and the other for

the coming Socialistic system. Great social class

struggles inevitably become political struggles. The

immediate object of the struggle is the possession of

the power of the State, with the aid of which the

capitalist class endeavours to maintain its position,

whilst the working class aims at the conquest of the

power of the State in order to accomplish its larger

objects.

The following chapter will show the direction taken

by the Labour movement. Here we will but briefly

refer to the profound influence of Marx's doctrine of

the class struggle as exercised in political thought.Prior to Marx, political thought and the struggles of

political parties seemed to revolve around ideas and

great personalities. Idealogy and hero-worship were

prevalent. Now, political thought, consciously or

unconsciously, proceeds along class and economic

lines. This is equally true of historical investigations.

These new political and historical orientations are

largely the result of Marx's life-work.

Rigidly conceived and applied, the Marxian doctrine

of the class-struggle may lead to ultra-revolutionary

tactics of the Socialist and Labour movement, to the

system of Workers' Councils, and Proletarian Dicta-

torship. If the emerging class and its struggle

constitutes the lever of social revolution and the


impulse of the dialectical social process, the Dictator-

ship of the Proletariat is justified, and in any case,

democracy, which includes both the capitalist and

working class, cannot be the State form during the

transition period from private property to Socialism.

Considered from the economic standpoint, political

democracy is generally impossible, or only sham

democracy so long as economic inequality exists.

The Communist Manifesto does not contain a single

political democratic reform. The conclusion can be

drawn from Marx's idea, as a whole, that in his

estimation, the class stood higher than so-called

democracy. This is one of the sources of Bolshevism.

III. THE ROLE OF THE LABOUR MOVEMENT AND THE

PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP.

The Labour Party is the political expression of the

whole Trade Union movement so far as the latter

formulates national demands, directed towards the

State and society generally. The Labour Party will

function the more effectively, and be able to accom-

plish its allotted task, as its foundation the Trade

Union movement becomes established and streng-

thened, and the more comprehensive will be its

effects. The Trade Unions are not merely to be

satisfied with the work of the present, but are to

become the focus and centre of gravity of the pro-

letarian aspirations which arise out of the social

transformation process, and are to work for the

abolition of Capitalism. The most effective lever for

ROLE OF THE LABOUR MOVEMENT 85

the achievement of this object is the conquest of

political power. With its aid the proletariat can con-

sciously carry out the transformation of a Capitalist

into a Communist society. To this transformation,there also corresponds a political transition period, the

state of which can be nothing else than a revolutionary

Dictatorship of the Proletariat. (Marx, Letter to

the German Social Democracy, 1875, on their Gotha

Programme.)Marx considered himself to be the real author of

the idea of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In a

letter written by him, in 1852, to his American friend,

Weydemeyer, he declares :

" As far as I am concerned, I can't claim to have

discovered the existence of classes in modern society

or their strife against one another. Middle-class

historians long ago described the evolution of the

class struggles, and political economists showed the

economic physiology of the classes. I have added

as a new contribution the following propositions :

(1) that the existence of classes is bound up with

certain phases of material production; (2) that the

class struggle leads necessarily to the Dictatorship

of the Proletariat; (3) that this dictatorship is but

the transition to the abolition of all classes and to

the creation of a society of free and equal."

(" Neue Zeit," Vol. XXV., second part, p. 164.)

With the exception of the year 1870, Marx remained

true to his doctrine of Proletarian Dictatorship : he

thought in 1875 as he did in 1847, when he sketched

the groundwork of the Proletarian Dictatorship in the

Communist Manifesto :


" The first step in the revolution by the workingclass is to raise the proletariat to the position of

ruling class, to win the battle of democracy." The proletariat will use its political supremacy

to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bour-

geoisie, to centralise all instruments of productionin the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat

organised as the ruling class; and to increase the

total of productive forces as rapidly as possible." Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be

effected except by means of despotic inroads on the

rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois

production ; by means of measures, therefore, which

appear economically insufficient and untenable, but

which, in the course of the movement, outstrip

themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old

social order, and are unavoidable as a means of

entirely revolutionising the mode of production."

But suppose that it is not the revolutionary workingclass which first attains to power in the revolution,

but the democracy of the lower middle class and the

social reformists. In this case, Marx gives the follow-

ing advice :"

Separate from it, and fight it." In the

address to the League of Communists in 1850 he said :

"It may be taken for granted that in the bloody

conflicts that are coming, as in the case of previous

ones, the courage, resolution, and sacrifice of the

workers will be the chief factor in the attainment of

victory. As hitherto, so in this struggle, the mass of

the lower middle class will maintain an attitude of

delay, irresolution, and inactivity as long as possible,

in order that, as soon as victory is assured, to arrogate

it to themselves and call on the workers to remain


quiet, return to work, avoid so-called excesses, and

to exclude the proletariat from the fruits of victory.

It is not in the power of the workers to hinder the

lower middle classes from doing this, but it is within

their power to render their success over the armed

proletariat very difficult, to dictate to them such

conditions that from the beginning the rule of the

middle-class democrats is doomed to failure, and its

later substitution by the rule of the proletariat

is considerably facilitated." The workers must, during the conflict and im-

mediately afterwards, as much as ever possible, opposethe compromises of the middle class, and compel the

democrats to execute their present terrorist threats.

They must aim at preventing the subsiding of the

revolutionary excitement immediately after the

victory. On the contrary, they must endeavour to

maintain it as long as possible." Far from opposing so-called excesses, and making

examples of hated individuals or public buildings

to which hateful remembrances are attached, by

sacrificing them to the popular rage, such examplesmust not only be tolerated, but their direction must

even be taken in hand. During the struggle and after

the struggle, the workers must seize every opportunity

to present their own demands side by side with those

of the middle-class democrats. The workers must

demand guarantees as soon as the middle-class

democrats propose to take the government in hand.

If necessary, these guarantees must be exacted, and

thd new rulers must be compelled to make every

possible promise and concession, which is the surest

way to compromise them. The workers must size upthe conditions in a cool and dispassionate fashion,


and manifest open distrust of the new Government,in order to quench, as much as possible, the ardour

for the new order of things and the elation which

follows every successful street fight. Against the newofficial Government, they must set up a revolutionary

workers' government, either in the form of local

committees, communal councils, or workers' clubs or

workers' committees, so that the democratic middle-

class government not only immediately loses its

support amongst the working classes, but from the

commencement finds itself supervised and threatened

by a jurisdiction, behind which stands the entire mass

of the working class. In a word : from the first

moment of victory the workers must no longer level

their distrust against the defeated reactionary party,but direct it against their former allies, who would

seek to exploit the common victory for their own ends.

The workers must be armed and organised to enable

them to threaten energetic opposition to this party,

whose treason to the workers will commence in the

first hour of victory. The arming of the whole pro-

letariat with rifles and ammunition must be carried

out at once, and steps taken to prevent the reviving

of the old militia, which would be directed against

the workers. But should this not be successful, the

workers must endeavour to organise themselves as an

independent guard, choosing their own chief and

general staff, with orders to support not the State

power, but the councils formed by the workers. Whereworkers are employed in State service, they must arm

and organise in a special corps, with a chief chosen

by themselves, or form a part of the Proletarian

Guard. Under no pretext must they give up their

arms and equipment, and any attempt at disarma-


ment must be forcibly resisted. Destruction of the

influence of the middle-class democrats over the

workers, immediate independent and armed organisa-tion of the workers, and the imposition of the mostirksome and compromising conditions possible uponthe rule of the bourgeois democracy, which is for the

time unavoidable. . . . We have noted that the

Democrats come to power in the next phase of the

movement, and how they will be obliged to imposemeasures of a more or less Socialistic nature. It will

be asked what contrary measures should be proposed

by the workers. Naturally, in the beginning of the

movement the workers cannot propose actual Com-munist measures, but they can (1) compel the

Democrats to attack the old social order from as manysides as possible, disturb its regular course, and

compromise themselves, and concentrate in the hands

of the State as much as possible of the productive

forces, means of transport, factories, railways, etc.

(2) When the Democrats propose measures which are

not revolutionary, but merely reformist, the workers

must press them to the point of turning such measures

into direct attacks on private property; thus, for

example, if the small middle class propose to purchasethe railways and factories the workers must demandthat such railways and factories, being the propertyof the reactionaries, shall be simply confiscated bythe State, without compensation. If the Democrats

propose a proportional tax, the workers must demanda progressive tax; if the Democrats themselves

declare for a moderate progressive tax, the workers

must insist on a tax so steeply graduated as to cause

the collapse of large fortunes ; if the Democrats

demand the regulation of the State debt, the workers


must demand State bankruptcy. Thus the demandsof the workers must everywhere be directed againstthe concessions and measures of the Democrats.

. . . Further, the Democrats will either work

directly for a Federal Republic, or, at least, if theycannot avoid the Republic one and indivisible, will

seek to paralyse it by granting the greatest possible

independence to the municipalities and provinces.The workers must set themselves against this plan,

not only to secure the one and indivisible German

Republic, but to concentrate as much power as

possible in the hands of the State. They need not be

misled by democratic platitudes about the freedom of

the Communes, self-determination, etc. Their battle-

cry must be * the revolution in permanence.'"

This Address of Marx, written in 1850, appears to

be the guide of the Bolsheviks and Spartacists.

The working classes may, however, not expect their

immediate emancipation from their political victory." In order to work out their own emancipation, and

with it that higher form of life which present-day

society inevitably opposes, the protracted struggle

must pass through a whole series of historical pro-

cesses, in the course of which men and circumstances

alike will be changed. They have no ideal to realise ;

they have only to set free the elements of the new

society, which have already developed in the wombof the collapsing bourgeois society." (Marx,

"Civil

War in France.")The means of production will gradually be social-

ised, production will be placed on a co-operative basis,

education will be combined with productive work, in

order to transform the members of society into

producers. So long as the transition period lasts the


Communist maxim," From each according to his

capacity, to each according to his needs,'* cannot

become operative. For this period is in every respect

economic, social, and intellectual still tainted with

the marks of the old society, and "rights cannot

transcend the economic structure of society, and the

cultural development which it determines." (Criti-

cism of Gotha Program.) To each will be given

according to his deeds."Accordingly the individual producer will receive

back what he gives to society, after deductions for

government, education, and other social charges. Hewill give society his individual quota of labour. For

example : the social working day consists in the sumtotal of individual working days ; the individual labour

time of the individual producer is the part of the social

working day which he contributes; his share thereof.

He will receive from society a certificate that he has

performed so much work (after deducting his work

for social funds), and with this certificate he will draw

from the social provision of articles of consumptionas much as a similar quantity of labour costs. The

same quantity of labour as he will give to society in

one form he will receive back in another. . . The

right of producers will be proportionate to the work

they will perform : the equality will consist in the

application of the same measure : labour."

Because performances will vary in accordance with

unequal gifts and degrees of diligence, an unequaldistribution will actually take place during the transi-

tion period. Only in a fully developed Communistic

society, after the distinction between intellectual and

physical labour has disappeared, when productive

activity has become a first need of life, when the


all-round development of the individual and the

productive forces has been achieved, and all the

springs of co-operative riches flow abundantly; onlythen can the narrow middle-class idea of rights be

improved on, and the Communist principle of equality

be put into operation.

Marx, who reasoned on strictly economic lines, and

placed the emancipation of the working class as the

highest goal, to which all other political and economic

movements are subordinated, did not mistake the

economic, political, and historical role of the nation :

this is shown by the Communist Manifesto, where

the creation of the national State by the bourgeoisie

is indicated. He mocked at the young enthusiasts

who thought they could brush aside the nation as an

obsolete prejudice, but, in spite of this, he considerably

under-estimated the unifying force of national feeling,

considered from a biological and cultural point of view.

He divided civilised mankind into antagonistic classes,

and assumed that the economic dividing lines would

prove to be more effective than national and political

boundary lines. He was, therefore, through and

through international. Marx demanded that the

national Labour Parties should act internationally as

soon as there was a possibility of the collapse of the

capitalist domination. He reproached the original

Gotha program with the fact that "it borrowed from

middle-class Leagues of Peace and Freedom the phraseof the international brotherhood of peoples, whereas

it was necessary to promote the international com-

bination of the working classes in a common struggle

against the ruling classes and their Governments."

Marx had no confidence in the pacifism of the

bourgeoisie.

OUTLINES OF ECONOMIC DOCTRINES 98

IV. OUTLINES OF THE ECONOMIC DOCTRINES.

1. Capital.

As we already know, Marx became a Socialist in

the year 1843. As a believer in dialectics, he knewthat Socialism can only be understood by a knowledgeof the movement operating in middle-class society

and its developing forces. His investigations in

1843-4 led to the result that political economy forms

the basis of bourgeois society. Henceforth political

economy became the chief department of his studies.

His comprehensive studies of French and English

economists, especially Sismondi and Ricardo, and the

anti-capitalist literature of England of the years

1820-40, which were connected with the Ricardian

theory of value, furnished him with a wealth of

suggestions and materials for the criticism of political

economy, for the source and origin and developmentand decline of capitalism, written from the standpoint

of the working class and the coming Socialistic society.

Such a work is"

Capital." It consists of three

volumes. Only the first volume (1867) was carried

through the press by Marx himself. The other two

volumes he only sketched, and they were completedand published by Engels after Marx's death.

The first volume deals with the origin and tendencies

of large industrial capital, with the immediate and

simple process of commodity production, so far as it

concerns the relations between employer and worker,

the exploitation of the proletariat, wages and labour

time, and the influence of modern technique on the

condition of the worker. We see in the first volume

the effect of the factory system in creating capital. Its

chief figure is the producing, suffering, rebellious


working class. In the second volume, the employer

appears on the market, sells his commodities, and sets

the wheels of production again in motion, so that

commodities will continue to be produced. In the

third volume, the realisation process of the under-

takings of the capitalist class, or the movement of

capital as a whole is exhibited : cost of production,cost price, total gains and their division into profit,

interest and ground rent. The first volume presentsthe greatest difficulties. The tremendous efforts of

the author to produce a masterpiece unnecessarily

refined and sublimated and overloaded with learning

the doctrines of value and surplus value until theyattained the level of a philosophy, an example of

Hegelian logic. He played with his subject like an

intellectual athlete. That Marx could handle com-

plicated economic questions in a clear, vigorous

manner is shown by the third volume, which is written

just as it came out of the author's head, and without

the apparatus of learning subsequently erected, with-

out the crutches of notes and polemico-philosophical

excursions.

To understand "Capital

"it is necessary to bear

in mind that (1) Marx regarded the scientifically

discovered principles as the real inner being of things,

practice he regarded as the superficial appearance of

things, capable of being apprehended empirically;

for example, Value is the theoretical expression, Price

the empirical; Surplus Value is the theoretical, and

Profit the empirical expression; the appearances

apprehended by experience (Price and Profit) deviate

indeed from theory, but without the theory theycannot be understood; (2) he looked at the capitalist

economic system as being essentially free from ex-


ternal hindrances and disturbances, free from invasions

both by the State and the proletariat : the Labour

struggles of factory protection laws of which Marx

speaks in"

Capital" serve rather to perfect the

productive forces than to restrict the exploiting pro-

clivities of sovereign capital.

2. Value.

The life and motion of capitalistic society appears

as an infinite net of exchange operations, formed out

of numerous entwined meshes.

Through the medium of money, men continually

exchange the most varied commodities and services.

A ceaseless buying and selling, an uninterrupted series

of exchanges of things, and labour power this

constitutes the essential part of human relations in

capitalistic society. An economic map of these

relations, graphically displayed, would not be less

confusing than an astronomical map which exhibited

the manifold and intersected orbits of the heavenly

bodies. And yet there must be some rule or law

which operates in this seeming medley of movements ;

for men do not work or exchange their goods byhazard, like savages who give their entire lumps of gold

or rough diamonds for a necklace of glass pearls. The

English and French economists in the seventeenth,

eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, amongst whomPetty (1623-87), Quesnay (1694-1759), Adam Smith

(1723-96), and Ricardo (1772-1823) were the most

original, sought for the laws which regulated exchange

operations, and their theories were designated byMarx as classical bourgeois economy. Following uptheir investigations, Marx declared : Every com-

modity, that is, every thing or good produced under


Capitalism and brought to the market possesses a use

value and an exchange value.

The use value is the utility of the commodity to

satisfy a physical or mental need of its user : a com-

modity without use value is not exchangeable or

saleable. As use values, commodities are materially

different from each other ; nobody will exchange a ton

of wheat for a ton of wheat of the same kind, but

he will for clothes.

In what measure will commodities exchange with

one another? The measure is the exchange value,

and this consists in the trouble and quantity of labour

which the production of a commodity costs. Equal

quantities of labour are exchanged with each other

on the market. As exchange values, as the embodi-

ment of human labour, commodities are essentially

equal to each other, only quantitatively are they

different, as different categories of commodities

embody different quantities of labour. It is obvious

that the quantities of labour will not be calculated

according to the working methods of the individual

producers, but according to the prevailing social

working methods.

If, for example, hand-weaver A requires twentyhours for the production of a piece of cloth, which in

a modern factory will be produced in five hours, the

cloth of the hand-weaver does not therefore possess

four-fold exchange value. If hand-weaver A demandsof consumer B an equivalent of twenty working hours,

B answers that a similar piece of cloth can be pro-duced in five hours, and therefore it only representsan exchange value of five working hours. Thus,

according to Marx, the exchange value of a commodityconsists in the quantity of socially necessary labour

power which its reproduction would require.


This quantity of labour is no constant factor. Newinventions, improvements in labour processes, increase

in the productivity of labour, etc., cause a diminution

in the quantity of labour necessary for the reproduc-tion of a commodity ; its exchange value, or expressedin terms of money, its price, will therefore sink, pro-vided that other things (demand, medium of exchange)remain equal.

Consequently, labour is the source of exchange

value, and the latter is the principle which regulates

exchange operations. Exchange value even measures

the extent of the commodity wealth of society.

Wealth may increase in volume, but decrease in value,

in so far as a less quantity of socially necessary labour

becomes necessary for its reproduction.

The more progressive a country is industrially and

the higher the level of its civilisation, the greater is its

wealth, and the smaller is the quantity of labour which

must be expended on the creation of wealth. In the

practical Labour politics of our times, this is expressedin higher wages and shorter working hours.

It was said above that use value is a basic condition

for the exchange of the individual commodity. This

does not exhaust the role of use value. The quantityof use value of which society has need determines the

quantity of the exchange values to be created. If

more commodities are required than society requires,

the superfluous commodities have no exchange value,

in spite of the labour that is expended on them.

(" Capital"

(German), Vol. III., 1, pp. 175-170.)

The complete realisation of exchange values or the

social labour that is performed depends, as is seen,

on the adaptation of supply to demand, and is a matter

of organisation, of social direction.


We have noticed that the Marxian theory of value

is related to that of the classical economists, but theyare by no means the same thing. Apart from some

improvements and definitions which Marx made, theyare distinguished by the following conceptions : In the

classical theory of value, the capitalist who directs

production and provides with his capital the tools and

raw materials of labour, markets the finished com-

modity, and keeps going the processes of reproduction,

appears as the only creator of value : the wage worker

is only one of his means of production. In the

Marxian theory of value, on the other hand, the wageworker who transforms the raw materials into com-

modities, or removes the raw materials to the place

of production, appears as the sole creator of value.

Value is only created by the worker in production,

and in distribution connected therewith.

6. Wages and Labour.

The worker appears to receive wages for his work.

In reality he receives wages as the equivalent for the

labour power expended by him, quite in accordance

with the law of value, inasmuch as he receives by wayof exchange as much means of sustenance as is usual

and customary to replace the labour power he has

expended, just as the working horse receives as muchoats and hay as are necessary to maintain it capableof work.

The capitalist and the worker exchange certain

quantities of commodities in proportions determined

by economic laws (means of subsistence against a

quantity of the commodity, labour power, of equal

value, commodity for commodity, exchange value for

exchange value).


As, therefore, the wages of labour signify a certain

quantity of the means of subsistence, so they increase

even if their money form remains unaltered with a

fall in the price of the means of life, for the worker

is then in the position, with his unaltered wage, to

buy a greater quantity of the means of life. In the

reverse case, if the prices of the means of life rise,

the wages of labour fall, even if their money form

remains the same as previously. This law of wages,formulated by Ricardo , was accepted by Marx, but

he did not content himself with this acceptance.Ricardo regarded the capitalist world as the only

possible and reasonable one, at least at the time whenhe wrote his

"Principles," while Marx from the year

1843 adopted a critical attitude towards it, and soughtto negate it. Consequently, he investigated further,

and expressed himself somewhat as follows :

The capitalist theoricians believed that the wages

question was disposed of when it was settled by the

law of value. We know, however, that every com-

modity possesses not only an exchange value, but also

a use value, and is bought for the sake of the latter.

The use value of the commodity labour power is

distinguished in a very remarkable way from the

use value of all other commodities.

The use or the employment of labour power creates

exchange value, and can create much more exchangevalue than itself possesses.

The employer can make use of labour power so longthat it not only creates its own exchange value (the

value of the means of subsistence), but double this.

To create the value of wages, the worker needs five

or six hours daily, but he is obliged to produce for the

capitalist during ten or twelve hours. If the worker

were independent he would only produce during one

half of the working day in order to receive his means

of subsistence. This period of producing Marx called"

necessary labour." As he is dependent on the

capitalist, the worker must not only perform" neces-

sary labour " but also surplus labour : the worker can

generally only find employment under the conditions

that, besides the time needed for himself, he also works

a definite number of hours for the capitalist without

payment. Or, as Marx says :

" The fact that half a

day's labour is necessary to keep the labourer alive

during the 24 hours, does not in any way prevent him

from working the whole day. Therefore, the value of

labour power and the value which labour creates in

the labour process are two entirely different magni-tudes. And this difference in the two values was what

the capitalist had in view when he was purchasinglabour power. The circumstance that on the one hand

the daily sustenance of labour power costs only half

a day's labour, while on the other hand the very same

labour power can work during a whole day ;that con-

sequently the value which its use during one daycreates is double what he pays for that use, this

circumstance is, without doubt, a piece of good luck

for the buyer, but by no means an injury to the seller."" No injury to the seller," which is quite correct

from the standpoint of Rieardo, but not from that of

Marx. He often calls surplus value "unpaid labour,"

and says, for example," the capitalist appropriates

one half of every day's labour without payment." In

other words, he takes away something without return.

This is a very distinct ethical judgment.On the other hand, it is veiy important that in our

consideration of the wages question we have come up


against the Marxian doctrine of surplus value. For

this doctrine is the cornerstone of the whole economic

system of Marx.

4. Surplus Value.

We have already noted that Marx followed the

classical economics in his treatment of the theory of

value, but improved the definition of it, and broughtit to bear on wages. In doing this he laid stress on

the conflict between Capital and Labour.

The beginning of this dialectical process, so far

as England was concerned, was the work of the anti-

capitalistic critics, who uttered their protest about

1820, or three years after the appearance of Ricardo's

work. They declared, according to Ricardo, labour

is the source and the measure of value. And yet

according to his opinion labour is nothing and capital

everything.

This should be reversed : labour must be all, and

capital nothing. This literature was contemporaneouswith the emergence of the English revolutionary

Labour movement, from which Chartism arose at a

later date. Piercy Ravenstone (1821) called capital

a metaphysical (airy, impalpable) entity. Hodgskin

(1827) called it a fetish, whereas they described labour

as the economic reality. The expressions surplus-

product and surplus-value were already known to this

anti-capitalist school, with which Marx also connected

himself when he set to work to elaborate his criticism

of political economy.* But this literature supplied him

with much less material for the construction of the

theory of surplus value than the formulation of the

theory of value of the classical economy. Besides,

Compare M. Beer,"History of British Socialism," Vol. I., pp.

245270.


while the English anti-capitalist critics, like Raven-

stone, Gray, Hodgskin, and J. F. Bray merely con-

demned surplus value as immoral and as the source

of all social wrongs, Marx used the theory of surplus

value as the key to unlock the mechanism of the

capitalist system and to reveal its workings, its

tendencies, and its final destiny. This appears to be

the real difference between the English anti-capitalist

critics and Marx. In this matter he was obliged to

perform most of the work himself. The question he

put was no longer" What is the substance of wealth

and how is it measured ?" but " How is its

growth and continual accretions to be explained ?"

Capital is that portion of wealth which is employedfor the purpose of gain, of increase. Whence comes

this gain, this increase? The answer is as follows :

All capital that is embarked on a productive under-

taking consists of two parts : one part is expended on

the technical means of production on buildings,

machines, tools, and raw materials, the other on

wages. The first part Marx calls Constant Capital (c),

the other part Variable Capital (v). The first is called

constant, because it only adds to the commodities

just as much value as it loses in the course of the

productive process ; it creates no fresh value : Marxalso calls it the passive portion. The outlay on wagesis called variable capital because it undergoes an

alteration hi the process of production : it creates newadditional value : Marx also called variable capital

the active portion, for it creates surplus value (s).

This composition of capital of constant and variable

parts Marx calls its organic composition. He calls it

average or normal composition when the capital of

a business is 80 per cent, constant and 20 per cent.


variable. If the constant part is higher, and the

variable part lower, he calls it capital of a high

composition.

Capital of under 80 per cent, constant portion and

over 20 per cent, variable portion he calls capital

of a lower composition. And rightly, because the

higher the ladder of capitalist production is, the more

costly and extensive are the machinery and factory

buildings and the greater is the outlay on raw

materials, whereas primitive businesses employ less

machinery, cheaper workshops, but a relatively greaternumber of workers. The relation between (c) and (v)

reveals at the same time the stage to which productionhas developed.

Thus, according to Marx, it is solely the variable

capital which creates surplus value, or, as it is

commonly expressed, profit. We have seen above,

in the explanation of the nature of wages, why variable

capital creates more value than it is paid for by the

capitalist ; the worker does indeed receive the exchangevalue of his labour power, but the use value of the

labour power functions, we have assumed, twice as

many hours as are necessary for its reproduction.

This surplus labour is embodied in surplus value.

While the worker receives, let us say, a daily wage of

three shillings, for the reproduction of which five hours

of work suffice, his labour power will be used for ten

hours. These five hours of surplus labour appear in

the exchange value of the commodity, so that the

value of the commodity is composed of the transferred

portion of the constant capital, the outlay on wages,and the added surplus value. Immediately before the

production process only constant and variable capital

existed, or, in brief (c) and (v) ; after the completion


of the production process, the commodity embodies

constant and variable capital and also surplus value,

or (c) and (v) and (s). This is the actual value of the

commodity, (c) or, shortly expressed, c+v+s.

The relation between wages and surplus value, or

between paid and unpaid labour, or, shortly, ^t

Marx calls the rate of surplus value : it expresses

the degree of the exploitation of labour.

If wages amount to three shillings, which can be

produced in five working hours, and if the worker

works in the factory ten hours for these wages, so

that he creates exchange value to the amount of six

shillings, then the rate of surplus value is 100 per cent.

The whole of the surplus value which arises in this

manner in the process of production is called the mass

of the surplus value, or shortly, m.s., that is to say,

the individual rate of surplus value multiplied by the

total number of workers engaged in an undertaking,

or the total amount of wages.

5. Profit.

The mass of surplus value appears to the capitalist

in the shape of profit. Surplus value is a Marxian

scientific term which exactly expresses the principle

of profit. Profit is a commercial expression which

describes surplus value as it appears in practical life

as a subject of experience, i.e., empirically.

The distinction between the Marxian theoretical and

the commercial empirical conception is, however, not

so simple : it arises from the different conceptions of

the influence of capital and labour in the economic

process. Let us explain it more distinctly.

As is known, Marx divided the capital embarkedin industrial enterprise into two parts : into constant


(technical means of production) and variable (living

labour power, wages). He assumed that only the

living labour power (wage labour) creates surplus

value, whilst the constant capital only adds its ownvalue to the new products.The capitalist divides his capital outlay otherwise :

into fixed (buildings and machines) and circulating

(raw materials and wages) capital. The fixed capital

is only used up slowly and only passes entirely into

production during a series of years let us say 15

years : thus of a fixed capital of 75,000, 5,000

would each year be consumed in the production of

commodities, and written off in the balance sheet.

On the other hand, the circulating capital (rawmaterials and wages) are wholly consumed in every

period of production, and must be renewed at the

beginning of a new period of production.

Suppose an industrial undertaking about to be

started requires a capital expenditure of 105,000 :

75,000 fixed capital (for buildings and machinery),

20,000 for raw materials, 10,000 for wages. For

convenience sake, we will suppose that the period of

production lasts a year, and that the rate of surplus

value amounts to 100 per cent., that is, the labour

power receives a payment of 10,000, and produces a

value of 20,000. At the end of the year, the capitalist

reckons an expenditure of 5,000 on account of fixed

capital, and 80,000 of circulating capital : the

commodities produced cost, therefore, a net outlayof 35,000. This is the cost price, without adding

profit. According to Marx, cost price signifies (c) and

(v), therefore without (s), (surplus value).

But the capitalist knows that the manufactured

commodities represent a greater value than the cost


price. According to Marx, the surplus value amounts

to 10,000 (as the variable capital of 10,000

creates surplus value at the rate of 100 per cent.) ;

but the capitalist adds to the cost price a profit

which includes the gains of the enterprise and

interest on the capital outlay. If the capitalist were

alone in the market, his profit might suck up the

whole of the surplus value of 10,000; but he

has to reckon with competition and the state of the

market. The cost price, plus profit, is the production

price as established by the capitalist. But according

to Marx, that is, in pure theory, the production price

is equal to the cost price, plus surplus value. There

is thus a quantitative distinction a difference in the

amount of money between the theoretical and

practical production price, as well as a qualitative

distinction between the notions of the capitalist and

Marx respecting the source of profit. The capitalist

believes that profit is the result of the portion of

capital which he has put into the process of produc-

tion, combined with his own commercial ability. Onthe other hand, Marx asserts that the capitalist can

only extract a profit because the wage workers (the

living labour power) create a surplus value in the

process of production for which they receive no

payment.We assumed that the surplus value amounted to

100 per cent, measured with variable capital, and

that 10,000 expended on wages produced 20,000.

The annual balance sheet, however, would show the

percentage of profit to the total outlay. Consequently,

we must spread the 10,000 surplus value over the

35,000 which have been expended. The surplus

value of an undertaking spread over the total capital


(c) Marx calls the rate of profit, or shortly,scS-mim^_ 28.58 per cent.

As a rule, the capitalist cannot sell under cost price

without becoming bankrupt, but he can quite easily

sell under the production price, and mostly does so.

In the example already given, his rate of profit

amounts to over 28 per cent. According to the degreeof competition, or by reason of other circumstances

which we will examine in the next chapter, he can

content himself with a rate of profit of 10, 15, or 20

per cent., which will serve him partly as an income

and partly be expended in the development of his

enterprise. The 28 per cent, profit generally forms

a circle within which he fixes his manufactured price.

Under favourable circumstances he can add the whole

28 per cent, to the price ; under less favourable, only

20, 15, or 10 per cent. Accordingly, several portions

of surplus value remain in the commodities which are

not yet realised. What happens to them? The

remaining portions of profit or of surplus value fall

to the large or small traders who are interposedbetween producer and consumer, or go in the form

of interest to the banking institutions, in the event

of the capitalist operating with borrowed money. As

the profit is only realised in the process of circulation

(in commerce and exchange) and there divided amongstthe various economic classes and sections, most peoplebelieve that profit arises in commercial transactions.

They do not know that the price of a commodity can

only be increased in trade because its manufactured

price was fixed below its price of production or its

value, that is, because the commodities contain

surplus value which is only gradually realised in the

process of circulation.


The social significance of this doctrine is far-

reaching. If it is correct, then all the social sections

which are not engaged as manual and brain workers

in the process of production, or in the transport of

raw material, lead a parasitical life and consume the

surplus value which is squeezed by the capitalist class

out of the proletariat and appropriated without

payment.Quite otherwise are capitalist ideas. According to

them, profit is the result both of the spirit of the

enterprise and the ability of the capitalist, added to

that portion of the capital which is put into the process

of production : the machines and buildings and raw

materials which are used up, and the labour power,all of which are bought at their proper exchangevalue. It is only fit and proper that the trader and

moneylender should receive a portion of the profit so

created, for they assist in realising the exchange value

by bringing the commodities to the consumer, and

thus rendering possible the process of production.

Surplus value or profit? Labour or Capital?Behind this question lurks the great class struggle of

the modern social order. No wonder the Marxian

doctrine of value and surplus value was the occasion

for an extensive controversy, in which the famous

problem of the average rate of profit played a great

part.

6. The Average Rate of Profit.

According to Marx's doctrine of value and surplus

value only variable capital creates fresh value and

surplus value. An industrial undertaking of a lower

organic composition, which thus employs muchvariable capital and little constant capital, must


consequently create a greater surplus value or more

profit than an industrial undertaking of higher com-

position which may employ the same total capital,

but composed of greater constant and smaller

variable portions than the former. Let us take two

industrial capitals of 35,000 each. One expends

15,000 on the constant elements (machinery, raw

materials) and 20,000 on the variable element (wagesof labour). The other shows 20,000 constant part and

15,000 variable part. With an equal rate of surplus

value 100 per cent. the first capital would pro-

duce 20,000 surplus value (profit) and the other

only 15,000 profit. Experience shows, however,that equal amounts of capital in spite of tem-

porary differences in profits tend to produce equal

profits. From this, it would appear that it is

actually the capital expended and not the labour

employed which determines the magnitude of the

surplus value (profit), that the concrete results of

the capitalist process of production do not confirm

the Marxian theory of value, that the facts directly

contradict the theory. It was Marx himself whodrew attention to this problem. After he had

constructed his theory of surplus value in the

form of a scientific law, he continued :

" This law

clearly contradicts all experience based on appearance.

Everyone knows that a cotton spinner, who, reckon-

ing the percentage on the whole of his applied capital,

employs much constant capital and little variable

capital, does not, on account of this, pocket less profit

or surplus value than a baker, who relatively seta in

motion much variable and little constant capital."

How, then, can the equal rate of profit in the case

of capitals of different organic composition be har-

monised with the theory of surplus value?


Marx concedes that equal capital sums whose

organic parts are unequally employed give an equalrate of profit, although the volumes of surplus value

created are different. Two capital sums of 50,000

each, one of which, for example, represents 40,000

constant and 10,000 variable capital, and with a rate

of surplus value of 100 per cent, gives 10,000 surplus

value, while the other is composed of 10,000 constant

and 40,000 variable capital, and with an equal rate

of surplus value gives an amount of 40,000 surplus

value, will nevertheless yield an equal rate of profit,

although theoretically they would be unequal if the

rate of surplus value directly determined the rate of

profit. In the first case, the rate of profit would

amount to 20 per cent, and in the second to 80 percent. In reality both undertakings yield an equal rate

of profit.

How is this explained, according to Marx? Bymeans of competition, the different rates of profit are

levelled to a general rate of profit, which is the averageof all the various rates of profit. Thus the capitalists

do not realise the surplus value as it is created in any

particular factory, but in the form of average rate of

profit as it is produced by the operations of the total

capital of society. The average rate of profit maybe lower or higher than the individual rate of profit,

for the " various capitalists," as Marx explains,** so

far as profits are concerned, are so many stockholders

in a stock company in which the shares of profits are

uniformly divided for every 100 shares of capital, so

that profits differ in the case of the individual

capitalists only according to the amount of capital

invested by each of them in the social enterprise,


according to his investment in social production as a

whole, according to his shares."

While thus the individual rates of profit do not pro-

portionately coincide with the rates of surplus value,

i.e., while the degree of exploitation of the worker in

the individual factory, and the volume of surplus value

thus individually created, do not directly determine

the individual rate of profit, it is the total mass of

social surplus value which is the source of the averagerate of profit. If the mass of the surplus value be large,

the average rate of profit will also be great. Marx

says :

"It is here just the same as with average rate

of interest which a usurer makes who lends out various

portions of his capital at different rates of interest.

The level of his average rate depends entirely on howmuch of his capital he has lent at each of the different

rates of interest." The higher the various individual

rates of interest, the higher will be the average rate of

interest at which his capital has been put out.

The individual price of production signifies, there-

fore, cost price plus the average rate of profit, and

not plus surplus value : it does not necessarily cor-

respond with the total amount of the constant and

variable portions of capital employed in an individual

enterprise, plus the mass of the surplus value : the

prices and magnitudes of value of commodities are not

manifestly equal, as Marx has often pointed out. Of

course, the total profits of the capitalist class coincide

with the total surplus value extracted from the working

class, provided, of course, that the supply of com-

modities corresponds with the social needs.

Thus the law of surplus value, in spite of all

deviations and refractions, holds good in the last

resort." In theory," observes Marx,

"it is assumed


that the laws of the capitalist mode of production

develop freely. In reality, there is always only an

approximation.' *

And the more capitalist production develops, the

greater will be the degree of approximation in par-

ticular cases, for the progress of Capitalism signifies

a continuous increase of constant capital, a more

mechanical character being given to industrial pro-

cesses, and a reduction of variable capital to the

necessary minimum, so that the differences in the

organic composition of capitalist undertakings become

less, thus bringing the average rate of profit and the

rate of surplus value nearer to each other.

This indirect and difficult method of realising profits

involves the fact that the capitalist does not distinctly

observe the exploitation of wage labour practised by

him, but he believes that the profit is owing to his

own commercial ability.

This difficult section of the outlines of the economic

doctrines of Marx can be most fitly concluded by

quoting the comprehensive observations of Marxhimself upon this subject, which he gives at the end

of his book. (" Capital"

(German), Vol. III., 2, pp.

855-6.)" In a capitalist society, this surplus value or this

surplus product (leaving aside accidental fluctuations

in its distribution and considering only the regulating

law of these fluctuations) is divided among the

capitalists as a dividend in proportion to the per-

centage of the total social capital held by each. In

this shape the surplus value appears as the average

profit, which in its turn is separated into profits of

enterprise and interest, and which in this way mayfall into the hands of different kinds of capitalists.

Just as the active capitalist squeezes surplus labour,


and with it surplus value in the form of profit out

of the worker, so the landlord in his turn squeezes

a portion of this surplus value from the capitalist in

the shape of rent. Hence when speaking of profit as

that portion of surplus value which falls to the share

of capital, we mean average profit. . . Profits of

capital (profits of enterprise plus interest) and groundrent are merely particular constituents of surplus

value. . . If added together, these parts form the

sum of the social surplus value. A large part of profits

is immediately transformed into capital." In this

way, capital grows, or, as Marx says, accumulates.

7. Surplus Value as Social Driving Force.

It has been said already that capital is that portion

of wealth which is devoted to the object of increasing

wealth, of gain, the extraction of profit or surplus

value. This object dominates the capitalist class ; the

desire for surplus value is the leading impulse and

principle motive of their activity. Goaded by this

desire and exclusively occupied with their special

interests, this class unconsciously and unintentionally

develops the entire capitalist system and leads it to

ever higher and more comprehensive stages.

Surplus value is thus the driving force of the history

of modern capitalist society. This principle is rigidly

followed out by Marx in his theoretical system, which

aims at showing the rise and growth of Capitalism.

The capitalist is no scientific investigator : he is not

clear himself whether profit is created by a portionof the capital, or is the result of personal productive

forces, but he knows one thing without living labour

power, without the wage worker, his whole capital

remains dead and does not increase; all the fixed


capital and raw materials are of no use to him so longas they are not set in motion by living labour powerand transformed into commodities. His efforts are,

therefore, primarily directed to making proper use of

the living labour power. Historically considered,

little constant and relatively much variable capital was

employed in the primitive stage of the large scale

industry : there was as yet little machinery, and the

chief thing was the living labour power. The workers

were not yet factory proletarians in the modern sense,

but artisans who had lost their independent existence.

The capitalist harnessed them and utilised their

labour power and special ability. Consequently, he

strives to lengthen the working day, in order that as

many commodities and as much profit as possible maybe produced.

If previously the wage worker had laboured ten

hours, of which five were devoted to the productionof the value of his wages and five to surplus value,

he is now obliged to work for twelve hours, which

increases the period for surplus labour to seven hours.

The surplus value which is extracted through the

lengthening of the working day is called by Marx" absolute surplus value."

Meanwhile, the capitalist learns by experience that

if the workers are so organised as to co-operate with

one another, the productivity of labour increases.

From this arises the mode of labour which Marx calls

Co-operation, or a reorganisation of the workplace,which raises the entire production of commodities to

a higher level. The co-operation of the workers in

the process of production soon leads to the discovery

that, if the worker does not himself create the whole

product, but only a part thereof, he loses less time


and becomes quicker and more skilful in his work and

produces more than previously. This discovery leads

to the " division of labour," which indeed reduces

the worker to the position of an automaton, or a

living machine, but considerably augments commoditywealth. Division of labour again demands finer tools ;

mechanical problems arise to be solved by mechani-

cians and engineers. This favours the progress of

mechanics. The growing commodity wealth, and the

pressure to realise it profitably, renders necessary moreextensive markets ; the need for extension comes upagainst transport difficulties; transport problems

arise, to be solved by road and canal engineers.

The increasing variety of the labour process and the

categories of commodities which are produced results

in new metallurgical, physical, and chemical problems.Natural science flourishes.

Meanwhile, things are not so peaceful in the places

of manufacture. The lengthening of labour time and

the closer strain on their nerves and muscles, as well

as the arrangement of the work, cause the workers

to combine and struggle for improved conditions of

labour. This struggle, together with the progress of

natural science, of technology, and the expansion of

markets, result in the discovery of machine technology,

of steam and electricity, the foundation of large-scale

industry.

The capitalist is impelled, on the one hand, to makehimself as independent as possible of living labour-

power; on the other hand, to increase the volume

of his profits. The means thereto are offered him bythe new technical discoveries. Those workers who still

possessed some pride in handicraft, or as expropriatedsmall peasants were not able to submit to factory


discipline, and showed themselves rebellious, were

partly replaced by the labour of women and children,

and partly curbed and made pliable. The labour time

is repeatedly lengthened, and the exploitation of the

labour of women and children assumes terrible pro-

portions. The wage worker, who entered into the

manufacturing premises of the employer full of the

pride of his calling and often with his own tools,

became then a small cog in a gigantic, relentless piece

of working machinery.In this extensive and hitherto unprecedented social

transformation the old forms of handicraft disappear :

whole sections of society, which are the representatives

of the disappearing forms of handicraft, sink into

poverty, and augment the class of proletarians. The

progress of the industrial revolution extends also to

agriculture : the greed for surplus value (ground rent)

leads to enclosure of common lands by the great

landlords, the independent yeomanry is decimated,

the small proprietor and small tenant are made pro-

letarians. A transmutation of social classes takes

place ; the urban population grows rapidly, the countrydistricts are depopulated : out of the revolutionary

process the outlines of two classes become more and

more distinct : Capitalist and Proletarian.

Both the factory proletariat and the other social

sections which adopt a hostile attitude towards

Capitalism react against the health-destroying exploi-

tation, and struggle for a normal working day.The working time is curtailed and bounds are set

to the efforts of the capitalist to lengthen the working

day and obtain surplus value, but soon the progressof machine technique compels the worker to labour

more intensely in the shorter working time : the


accelerated movement of the machine determines the

pace and necessitates a sharper straining of the

nerves. Henceforth, the worker must compress into

a working hour as much effort as was previously

expended in an hour and a half. The surplus value

which is extracted in this way Marx calls"

relative

surplus value." The struggle of the workers to secure

a shorter working day is a powerful incentive to the

manufacturers to perfect their machinery, in order to

increase the amount of relative surplus value. Theintensification of work or the creation of relative

surplus value is one of the most immediate effects

and one of the most striking features of advanced

Capitalism. The understanding of this new phase is

a preliminary condition to the comprehension of the

Marxian system. In this matter, Marx goes con-

siderably beyond the anti-capitalist theoreticians whofollowed upon Ricardo.

What happens when the capitalist observes that the

extraction of absolute surplus value comes up against

an insurmountable obstacle ? He sets himself to fit uphis enterprise with the newest and most costly

machinery, in order to supplant living labour-powerand to work more intensively the living labour-powerwhich he employs.

As, however, less living labour-power brings forth

less exchange value and less surplus .value, he is

obliged to multiply production, in order to cover the

fall in surplus value by a larger mass of commodities :

if the single commodity brings him less profit, he

produces it in such large quantities that the profit

thereon is the same, or even greater, than formerly.

The more complicated machinery, the greater quan-tities of raw materials consumed, and the relatively


smaller amount of labour-power signify obviously an

alteration in the organic composition of capital : the

constant portion (machinery, raw materials) prepon-derates more and more over the variable portion. If,

previously, the composition was 50 per cent, constant

and 50 per cent, variable, it becomes now somethinglike 80 per cent. : 20 per cent. At the same time,

the initial capital is also increased greatly, as machines

and large quantities of raw and auxiliary materials

demand such increase of capital. If, for example, the

initial capital previously amounted to 100,000,

divided into 50,000 constant and 50,000 variable

capital, it would now amount to 500,000, comprising

400,000 constant and 100,000 variable. This

organic composition signifies : that relatively smaller

masses of labour set in motion large masses of tech-

nical means of production ; labour is more productivebecause more intense; the sum total of commodities

is increased ; the profit on single articles is smaller,

but the total profit is greater; the reconversion of

profits into capital proceeds rapidly.

The scale of production is more and more extended,

and the amount of initial outlay becomes ever greater,

because only large capitals are capable of creating

relative surplus value in sufficient sums to assure a

profit on the enterprise and payment of interest, and

thus assist the accumulation of capital.

The more extended scale of production is not

possible to the less powerful capitalist undertakings.

They partly disappear and partly combine in joint

stock companies. The first alternative gives rise to

the concentration of the means of production in fewer

hands, and the second to the centralisation of the

means of production. This is the effect of the new


organic composition of capital on the capitalist class.

The effect on the working class is not less profound.

As long as the hand-worker still played an important

part in the works premises, as long as the variable

part was superior or equal to the constant part in

the organic composition of capital, as was the case

prior to and at the beginning of large-scale industry,

the accumulation of capital meant an increased

demand for wage-labour. The position was changedas Capitalism developed, in the manner just described.

Although the mass of capital grows, there is a relative

decrease in the demand for workers. For this growthof capital refers chiefly to the constant part

(machinery and raw materials), while there is a

relative shrinkage in the variable part; that means

the worker is obliged to consume a much greater

quantity of raw material than formerly.

And whereas the prices of commodities fall duringthe phase of the high organic composition of capital,

the period of necessary labour (the hours needed for

the reproduction of wages) becomes shorter, while the

period of surplus labour becomes longer. The great

industrial development therefore signifies for the

worker : intensive exploitation and relative over-

population, a reserve army of labour-power, which is

absorbed by industry in times of prosperous trade,

and is speedily demobilised when the slump comes.

In times of good business the reserve army serves to

check the wage demands of the workers regularly

employed, and in times of bad trade it serves to

depress wages. The outcome for the workers is as

follows :

" Within the capitalist system all methods for

raising the social productiveness of labour are brought


about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means

for the development of production transform them-

selves into means of domination over, and exploitation

of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a

fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an

appendage to a machine, destroy every remnant of

charm in his work, and turn it into a hated toil ; they

estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of

the labour-process in the same proportion as science

is incorporated in it as an independent power; theydistort the conditions under which he works, subject

him during the labour-process to a despotism the more

hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time

into working-time, and drag his wife and child

beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of Capital. Butall methods for the production of surplus value are

at the same time methods of accumulation ; and everyextension of accumulation becomes again a means for

the development of those methods. It follows,

therefore, that in proportion as capital accumulates,

the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low,

must grow worse. Accumulation of wealth at one

pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of

misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality,

mental degradation at the opposite pole, i.e., on the

side of the class that produces its own product in the

form of capital." ( Capital"

(German), Vol. I.,

pp. 660-1.)

The result of the capitalist social order is the

unfolding of the productive forces, the efflorescence of

science, the expansion of material civilisation, the

dividing of society into antagonistic classes, the

conferring of economic power on the few, and the

enslavement and degradation of the many.


8. Economic Contradictions. Decay of Society and

its Reconstruction.

As the ripening of the capitalist social order to its

highest point proceeds, its innate contradictions

develop, and announce distinctly the fact that

Capitalism has outlived its usefulness, while new life,

a higher form of society, is emerging from its womb.The most important contradictions are :

The driving force of the capitalist is to obtain the

largest measure of surplus value or profit. The latest

stage of Capitalism is, however, marked by the fact

of the high organic composition of capital, which

means that living labour-power, the source of surplus

value, has relatively decreased. The decrease of

variable capital signifies manifestly a lower rate of

profit. Capitalism in normal times exhibits a tendencytowards a lowering of the rate of profit. Therefore

it gives rise to a phenomenon which contradicts the

aim of the endeavours of the capitalists. The capitalist

strives to accumulate capital, but as variable capital

and the rate of profit relatively decrease, a tendencytowards the depreciation of capital is revealed. The

capitalist endeavours to counteract this tendency, and

to achieve his object by extending the scale of

production, so that the mass of commodities will

compensate him for what he loses on them singly.

But while he furthers this object by resorting to a

higher organic composition of capital, he squeezes out

the middleman, reduces the numbers of workers in

employment, and creates a relative over-population,

a reserve of those who are only employed inter-

mittently; there is a substantial shrinkage in the

demand for commodities, as the impoverished masses

of the people have obviously less purchasing power.


The capitalist extends production, and at the same

time contracts the market. The upshot is over-

production, under-consumption crisis : wasting of

capital, restriction of production, paralysis of the

productive forces. And if Marx lived to-day he would

add : the developed economy of large-scale capitalism,

that is, the high organic composition of industrial

capital, requires enormous quantities of raw materials,

which, in part, are only to be had from tropical and

sub-tropical countries, and also from eastern Asia;

the struggle for these sources of raw materials, and

for access to them, leads t.o wars in which capital

sums of unprecedented amount are destroyed. Since

1894 these wars over raw materials and trade routes

have broken out every few years. Economic crises

and imperialist wars; immeasurable destruction of

capital and productive forces. This is a consequencewhich stands in sharp contradiction to the historical

task of the economic order of Capitalism, and to the

immediate aims of the individual capitalists.

Further, the capitalist tries from the beginning to

create docile and unresisting masses of workers, and

yet unites and combines them by the creation of

large centres of production; the factories become

centres for the organisation of the workers, and for

the welding of the individual wills of the proletarians

into a class will; they abolish the scattered and

antagonistic interests of single sections of the workers,

and consolidate them into a unified class interest.

Finally, the whole economic process, which began by

resting on individualist principles, has assumed a

common character ; thousands upon thousands of hand

and brain workers engage in production in economic

undertakings upon a single and uniform plan, with


the aid of productive implements which can only be

used in common.The significance and tendency of these contradictions

are sketched by Marx in the great finale, which

properly belongs to the concluding chapter of the third

volume :

" As soon as this process of transformation has

sufficiently decomposed the old society from topto bottom, as soon as the labourers are turned into

proletarians, their means of labour into capital, as

soon as the capitalist means of production stands on

its own feet, then the further socialisation of labour

and further transformation of the land and other

means of production into socially exploited, and

therefore common means of production, as well as the

further expropriation of private proprietors, takes

a new form. That which is now to be expropriatedis no longer the labourer working for himself, but

the capitalist employing many labourers. This

expropriation is accomplished by the action of the

immanent laws of capitalist production itself, by the

centralisation of capital. One capitalist always kills

many. Hand in hand with this centralisation, or this

expropriation of many capitalists by a few, developon an ever-extending scale the co-operative form of

the labour process, the conscious technical application

of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the

transformation of the instruments of labour into

instruments of labour only usable in common, the

economising of all means of production by their use

as the means of production of combined, socialised

labour, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of

the world market, and with this, the international

character of the capitalist regime. Along with the


constantly diminishing number of the magnates of

capital, who usurp and monopolise all advantages of

this process of transformation, grows the mass of

misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation ;

but with this, too, grows the revolt of the working

class, a class always increasing in numbers, and

disciplined, united, organised by the very mechanism

of the process of capitalist production itself. The

monopoly of capital becomes a fetter on the mode of

production, which has sprung up and flourished alongwith it, and under it. Centralisation of the means

of production and socialisation of labour at last reach

a point where they become incompatible with their

capitalist integument. This integument is burst

asunder. The knell of capitalist private propertysounds. The expropriators are expropriated."

(" Capital," Vol. I. English edition, chap. 84.)

CONCLUSION.

ANappreciation of Maix can only be arrived at

by adopting the Marxian method. We must

judge him in the same way as any other

towering figure in the realm of thought or of action.

Marx was a child of his time, and his system is a

logical conception of certain economic and social

phenomena of his age, owing something to the pioneerwork and thinking of some of his predecessors.

Two important events dominated his thinking : the

French Revolution and the English Industrial Revolu-

tion. Even apart from the statement of Arnold Rugethat in 1843-44 Marx had collected a vast amount

of material for a history of the French National

Convention, we know from the work he did between

1844 and 1852 how profound was the influence of the

French Revolution on his intellectual life. Still

deeper, however, were the traces left upon his mind

by the studies he made on the economic transforma-

tion of England during the period 1760-1825. Both

events are obvious, catastrophic expressions of class

movements and class conflicts, in which the middle

class, as the representative of a higher economic order,

gains the victory over autocratic forms of feudal

authority and oligarchic systems of organisation

through State regulation, in which, however, at the

same time, a new class the working class raises its

head and begins to make a stand against the victor.

Marx was led to interpret these events in this wayand to make them the basis of his conception of

125


history chiefly through the influence of Hegel, Ricardo,

and the English anti-capitalist school following uponRicardo. To the end of his life he clung to the opinionthat dialectic, as Hegel had formulated it, was indeed

mystical but, when materialistically conceived, con-

tains the laws of the movement of society." The

mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands

in no wise hinders him from presenting in a com-

prehensive and intelligible manner its general pro-

cesses." (Preface to second German edition of"

Capital," 1873.)

The splitting up of the concept into contradictories,

and the attainment of a higher positive through the

negation of these contradictories, that was what, to

Marx's mind, constituted the essence and the deepest

meaning of the French Revolution and of the English

Industrial Revolution. Society, the positive, split upinto feudal and bourgeois, into two sharply divided

contradictories, the bourgeoisie appearing as the

negation, to be supplanted by the proletariat and so

to make room for a Communist society, the higher

synthesis.

What he got from Hegel in a mystical form found

an economic expression in Ricardo and the anti-

capitalist school. Ricardo's writings, which belong to

the second decade of the nineteenth century and

which formulate, in the guise of a system of economics,

the antagonisms and the conflicts between industry

and landed nobility, presented themselves as a

practical demonstration of the validity of dialectic.

The fundamental idea of Ricardo's system may be

expressed as follows :

Capital is the motive force of society and the creator

of civilisation, but the fruits of its activity are enjoyed

CONCLUSION 127

not by capital but by the landed nobility. That is

the thesis; now for the proof. The value of all

commodities which can be made in any quantitydesired consists in the quantity of labour which is

expended for the purpose of producing them. The

value is expressed in the costs of production, the most

important components of which are wages and profit.

Wages and profit stand in opposition to one another :

if wages rise, profit falls, and conversely. Wagesconsist in a definite quantity of the necessaries of life,

sufficient to keep the worker effective. Wages must

obviously rise whenever the cost of living rises. The

facts show that this is actually the case. The follow-

ing reasons make this clear. In consequence of the

civilising effects of capital, there is an increase in the

opportunities for work and in population, resulting

in an increased demand for the necessaries of life.

Agriculture must be extended, but agricultural land

is limited and of varying quality. The extension of

agriculture brings into use the inferior kinds of land,

which demand a greater amount of labour for their

cultivation. And as the amount of labour determines

the value of the commodity, the cost of living

increases, and there is a rapid rise in ground rents.

The workers demand higher wages, whereby the

profits of the employers are diminished. But there

is still another circumstance to be taken into

consideration. Whereas the prices of agricultural

products rise, those of industrial products fall, since,

in consequence of the invention of machinery and

of the superior division of labour, smaller quantities

of labour are required to produce manufactured goods.

The result of the entire working of capital for the

civilised community is accordingly the reduction of


profits, the depreciation of capital, and the increase

of wages. This latter, however, is of no advantageto the workers, for food prices rise higher and higher ;

on the contrary, the whole advantage falls to the

landed nobility, who do nothing for the furtherance

of civilisation, but who, through ground rents and

protective tariffs, receive everything.We have, then, in Ricardo a system of economic

contradictions between profit, wages, and rent, or

between bourgeoisie, proletariat, and nobility, in

which the antagonism between bourgeoisie and pro-letariat is still undeveloped.The year of the publication of Ricardo's " Prin-

ciples"

(1817) is the year which witnessed the rise

of English Socialism. In that year, Robert Owen, in

a public meeting in the City of London, declared

himself a Socialist. Three years later appeared the

first criticisms of Ricardo's political economy. In

these it was argued that, according to Ricardo, labour

is the source of value, yet he considers capital as the

creative factor of society and the working class as

a mere appendage of capital. It must be the reverse ;

for the workers create values together with the surplus

products which are appropriated by capital. In 1817,

Robert Owen openly declares himself a Socialist ; four

years later appears the anonymous letter to Lord John

Russell ; Percy Ravenstone publishes his" Criticism of

Capitalism," John Gray his Lecture, and Hodgskinhis pamphlet on the unproductive nature of capital,

in which he establishes the existence of a raging class

struggle.

The deep impression which these writings made on

Marx is clearly seen in the second and third volumes

of his** Theories on Surplus Value." And he links

CONCLUSION 129

on to them. He completed what Ricardo hinted at

and what the anti-capitalist school deduced from

Ricardo. How Marx continued and elaborated these

deductions we have already seen in Chapter 8," Outlines of Marx's Economics," and Chapter 7,"

Surplus Value as the Motive Force of Society/'where capital is shown to be the mass of surplus value

of which the workers have been deprived.

The deductions made by the English anti-capitalist

school from Ricardo signified, politically, the first

awakenings of the English workers to class-

consciousness, to the struggle against capital. Just

as Ricardo's theory of value and rent was the battle-

cry of capital against the aristocracy a battle-cry

which created the free trade movement and shattered

the economic power of the landed nobility, so the

theory of value and surplus value was to become the

battle-cry of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie,

the declaration of independence, so to speak, of the

working class. The English proletariat lacked a

philosopher who could work out the idea to its logical

conclusion, until Marx applied himself to the problemand solved it, so far indeed as philosophical problemscan be solved, by a science which places itself at the

disposal of a class movement.

For it is impossible to set aside the view that

Marx's theory of value and surplus value has rather

the significance of a political and social slogan than

of an economic truth. It is for Marx the basis of

the class struggle of the workers against the middle

class, just as Ricardo's theory of rent was the basis

of the class struggle of the bourgeoisie against the

aristocracy, or as the doctrines of the social contract

and of the natural rights of man formed the basis


of the struggle of the middle classes against autocracyand divine right. Such militant philosophies need not

in themselves be true, only they must accord with

the sentiments of the struggling mass. It is with such

philosophical fictions that human history works.

Marx's theory of value explains neither the vast and

unparalleled accumulation of wealth nor the move-

ment of prices during the last sixty years. Wealth,

measured in values, has, in the last few decades,

increased by many times the increase in living labour-

power. In this connection the old formula can be

reversed : wealth increases in geometrical, living

labour-power in arithmetical progression. The

greatest difficulty in Marx is that the inventors and

discoverers, the chemists and physicists, the pioneers

and organisers of industry and agriculture, are not

regarded by him as creators of surplus values.

Thinkers, who by chemical researches and discoveries

double the productive capacity of the soil and

conjure forth values in millions from the waste

products of industry ; physicists who place new sources

of power and new means of production at the disposal

of mankind and multiply the productivity of labour;

organisers who co-ordinate the forces of productionand introduce new methods of working all this

creative and directive work, demanding, as it often

does, an infinite amount of intensive intellectual

effort, is not considered to increase the total sum of

exchange values of the nation.

However, as far as the distribution of products is

concerned, Marx's theory is, generally speaking,

correct; distribution is carried out under the capitalist

economic system not according to the amount of

productive work done, but in proportion to the outlay

CONCLUSION 181

of capital and the skill in commercial manoeuvringwhich obtains in the sphere of circulation.

Unique as an investigator of the laws of the

proletarian movement, eminent and even a great

pioneer as a sociologist, Marx is, in respect of

economic theory, predominantly an agitator. His

system, more than any other system of Socialism or

of political economy, is the revolutionary expressionof proletarian thought and feeling. His doctrines of

value, surplus value, the economic determination of

history, the evolution from Capitalism to Socialism,

the political and economic class struggle, will for longhave the force of truth for the masses and will

continue to move them.

Marx's heart must have been filled with joy and

gladness when, out of the elements of Hegel, Ricardo,

and the English anti-capitalist school, out of his studies

of the French Revolution, of the English Industrial

Revolution, and of French and English Socialism there

arose a unified system whose destiny it was to lead

mankind out of the earth-bound history of the pastinto the new world wherein a spiritual civilisation

should fully blossom forth. Man is to quit the realm

of necessity and to enter into that of freedom, where

he shall cease to be a tool for the profit of others

and shall rise to have a purpose of his own, freely

associating himself with his fellow men to work in

the service of all.

" The realm of freedom, indeed, only begins there

where work conditioned by necessity and external

utility ceases. According to the nature of the thing,

therefore, it lies beyond the sphere of actual material

production. Just as the savage must struggle with

nature for the satisfaction of his needs, for self-


preservation and self-reproduction, so too must the

civilised man, whatever be the form of society or the

methods of production obtaining. Side by side with

his own evolution develops this constitutional

necessity, because his needs increase ; but, at the same

time, the forces of production which satisfy these needs

likewise increase. Freedom in this sphere can only

consist in this that men in their social relationship,

the associated producers, should regulate this material

exchange with Nature in a rational manner and bring

it under their united control, instead of being governed

by it as by some blind power; it should be carried

on with the minimum expenditure of energy and

under conditions most adapted to and most worthyof human nature. Yet it remains all the same a realm

of necessity. It is beyond this where that developmentof human power, which may be called independent

purpose, begins, the true realm of freedom, which,

however, can only flourish upon the basis of that

realm of necessity." (" Capital," Vol. III., 2, p.

855.)

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